Red hot pokers, hollyhocks and dahlias. Wasp traps,
dollops of jam in jars. Chicken wire. Her thighs,
the white marzipan, the cucumber scent of lotion.
Ticks grown fat on blood. Fleas ground between
fingernails. Tree moths with wings of pressed dust.
The creased film of tar on the telephone pole,
the black succulence beneath. Saucers of ale
for slugs to binge. A pond, the rich-stillness
of algae, beads of fermentation surfacing,
the peekaboo of frogs, the knock-kneed grace
of the mayfly, the rich-still stench of the pool.
A bird bath. Seed trays. The two-stroke vibrancy
of a petrol mower. A dog’s toys, outside, sugared
in earth. Her toes, newborn rats, translucent
as watered milk. Pigeons hung beside a peg-bag,
a French maid, in the porch. Waxed, oiled
and hempen skins amassed on three coat hooks.
The filament skeletons of flies on pollen-dusty sills.
Mildewed apples. Sacks of Desiree, the anaemic warts
of burgeoning roots. Corrugated sheets. Pea sticks.
The scrawl of brambles, nettles, mallow and elder,
of wild rhubarb, wild cabbage, wild garlic and grasses,
of everything untended, invading. Sudden,
dirty thunderstorms. The weight of rain
measured in decibels, applause. Her chill arse,
the goose pimples. The scent of wet soil carried.
Net curtains lifting. The near-distant firing of shotguns.

MARKUS LLOYD lives in Southampton. His work features in Seren Selections (Seren, 2006) and has appeared in Magma, Poetry Wales, and New Welsh Review.

© Copyright of this poem remains with the poet: please do not download or republish without permission.

top ^