The tadpoles won’t keep still in the aquarium;
Ben’s tried seven times to count them –
thirty-two, thirty-three, wriggle, wriggle –
all right, he’s got better things to do.

Heidi stares into the tank, wearing
a snail on her knuckle like a ring.
She can see purple clouds in the water,
a sky for the tadpoles in their world.

Matthew’s drawing a worm. Yesterday
he put one down Elizabeth’s neck.
But these are safely locked in the wormery
eating their mud; he’s tried that too.

Laura sways with her nose in a daffodil,
drunk on pollen, her eyes tight shut.
The whole inside of her head is filling
with a slow hum of fizzy yellow.

Tom squashes his nose against the window.
He hopes it may look like a snail’s belly
to the thrush outside. But is not attacked:
the thrush is happy on the bird-table.

The wind ruffles a chaffinch’s crest
and gives the sparrows frilly grey knickers
as they squabble over their seeds and bread.
The sun swings in and out of clouds.

Ben’s constructing a wigwam of leaves
for the snails. Heidi whispers to the tadpoles
‘Promise you won’t start eating each other!’
Matthew’s rather hoping that they will.

A wash of sun sluices the window,
bleaches Tom’s hair blonder, separates
Laura from her daffodil with a sneeze,
and sends the tadpoles briefly frantic;

until the clouds flop down again
grey as wet canvas. The wind quickens,
birds go flying, window glass rattles,
pellets of hail are among the birdseed.