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Paul McLoughlin

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The Garden

Midnight under a fish-skin sky,
the cut-out dip and rise of blackened trees dropped in
for distance. Warnings come

with thick black borders like mass cards
for the dead. An untipped cigarette.
Silly to suppose there’s life beyond those jokes of yours.

This kind of peace. Monk’s straight-fingered
evergreen Round Midnight will play for drinks tomorrow
“The original is always best.”

Here, the night-light spent, mild air is improvising
a disturbing calm. Find the poem you’ve been looking for,
plundered second-hand.

Death, it decides, becomes
a problem of style. How are we living still and vexed
by what we’ve achieved?

Two late bottles of London Pride help
create a reputation I can smile about. I take one chilled,
the other warm, then come inside.

Behind the central evergreen that you want rid of,
a brick shelter is your wine vault
and a cold retreat, its fat cigars for gardening

and driving home from taxing days.
Why should you want it seen?

Paul McLoughlin was born in London of Irish parents. He teaches part-time in a comprehensive school and at university and plays jazz saxophone and fl ute. What Certainty Is Like (Smith/Doorstop) was published in 1998, and What Moves Moves (Shoestring Press) in 2004. A new collection is forthcoming from Shoestring.

Page(s) 51

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