Trails of terraced houses line the edges of the canal, bloated rolls of white bread float

from morning feedings. Johnny’s face is red with grinding teeth and swollen knuckles.

His purple and green silk shell jacket catches with wind beneath his armpits expanding like a kite.

The hot burn of vodka rippling in his stomach and raging through his brain.

Swans with necks twisted into their backs rest along the bank. Johnny squelches towards

them with groping thick fingers. Necks crane around and up from flattened grass and mud,

their nest of dead reeds and empty Tayto packets. Johnny lunges towards one and grabs

a feather from its side. The bird screeches and rises up with beating flaps. Flat orange beak

bites and grabs at his skin, until the swan grasps his elbow in his beak and rips flesh.

Johnny stumbles away roaring and cursing, his body swaying side to side along the canal.

He pulls up his sleeve and notices a thick strand of red thread hanging from his elbow,

He tugs the string, the vein tears open. Blood pours, dripping from his numb fingers

To his white adidas and flattened footprints of grass. The beads of blood hang and

perch on pointed tips of green, beginning to slide down the broad blades to earth.

Drawn to the colour of themselves, they form little wells of red. The soil soaks up the

underbellies of the blood pools, which mixes with earth to form the first veins of roots.

The piercing sun forms a thin skin similar to boiled milk that stretches up to the heat with a

centre reflecting the light. Delicate scabs flatten outwards until the edges tear into five petals.

They spread in clusters on thin layers of soil and stone, keeping the deep purple of Johnny’s

beating blood in their cores for children to pick and place in their hair and sticky palms,

on picnic days with squashed tinfoil sandwiches.