Diana Webb: TURNER'S GOAL

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A sunken blob of paint marks the centre of the football pitch, almost spot on where Turner created a watercolour of the old churchtower, west-facing on the brow of the hill, beyond trees in full leaf then as now, their varying shades - five black and white cows caught where the goal posts stand today, between here and the new hedge, obscuring the view he brushed in of the river's flow...

drawn
to the chalky curve
a dragonfly

A pair of maintenance lads in green wheel out a new layer from a plastic container; turning the corner, a chemical smell, some kind of weedkiller they say, burning it in.

coated grass blades –
re-ruling them
the wind

by Diana Webb

London, England

first published in Presence 34, Jan. 2008