Wet Week

I didn’t pack the bags for rain.

Nor did the sheep, dotted around these cliffs in ragged, sopping heaps.

We are bored, me in my damp tent and the sheep in their damp wool.

This drizzle seeps in everywhere so why, I ask, when the sun shines don’t we get soaked with air?

Next year I’ll pack for rain, cram into my rucksack a cloud of umbrellas, a storm of board games and all the wellingtons for sheep.

Jo Shapcott is joint editor, with Matthew Sweeney, of Emergency Kit (Faber) and the Poetry Society’s poet on the Internet