Other people's gardens

When you were five years old,
you knew how to pick up
an ant
between thumb and
forefinger

a small miracle on six
legs that traced
the outline of
your hand. 

In other people's gardens
while conversations smouldered
insects grew huge
and carnivorous,

swollen cicadas
turned their skins inside out,
left eyes beneath leaves
to remind you.

In other people's gardens
it was autumn
forever

with roses in perpetual
sepia and the
ground rotting
into mushrooms.

How you listened
but did not understand
as they talked about who
would mow the lawns now?

and how much bluer
agapanthus was
when Harry was alive.


 Charlotte Trevella


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