Weeds
The ground elder now invades the garden,
which she would hate.
And shepherds purse, dandelion, rosebay willow herb,
a sprawl of bramble…
they follow soon after.
Wasteground weeds she’d have said with a sniff.
But now they all come,
fill the space, riot with growth in this rainy spring.
I let them come –
and the spiders in the bathroom –
for her over-trim garden was never to my taste.
Let them come, let them grow: their nodding pink heads,
tough yellow stars, vigorous suckers scaling the wall,
their long white taproots
pushing deep down beneath the earth.
I let them soften the edges,
scratch and blur the borders,
making it a different garden from the one she knew,
as if I were saying to her Now you relax,
now at last
you give way.
We can walk the garden of wild, uncertain things
and have no fear of what we might find.
We can stand here in the night
and feel it grow …
the fibrous, risky air,
the sound – when you listen –
of more and more.
Page(s) 6
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The