Gardening
By cc1959
- 706 reads
Something like atmospheric pressure - that's it;
Before rain when the air is thick.
I'd miscalculated:
The articles were long and dry.
And it was too early for poetry.
But she too had put in some thinking:
She'd planned some gardening
To shore up the remainder of the afternoon.
Shifting tree and shrub trimmings.
Then - after the first pile was barrowed away -
I was drawn into drastic tree surgery
Both armed with lethal pruners
We finished what had been begun;
A sisterly quest
To rid the world of untidy vegetation;
A feminist castration binge.
Laughing as we lopped
Taking turns with the wheelbarrow
While the children played on the lawn
We shifted all the trimmings.
Later the camaraderie of the garden
Is forgotten:
Consigned to the dark tool-shed
Of our collective memory.
The fish pie is good.
The air is taut.
There is something stuck in my throat.
The tangled hedge
We'd so lovingly tended for so long
Is gone.
We'd shifted it.
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