As if aware of death,
nature threw a shroud over things
best forgotten. Like the time,
sunk on Plymouth Gin,
you opened your lungs to the moon
and dashed a tumbler on the rockery.
Or when, with nerves splayed,
you flung some unloved vase
at next-door’s cat; missing,
they said, by a whisker.
Aware only of ourselves,
we arrived with shears and trowel,
creating order, sifting debris.
Discovering, beneath a veil of earth,
a red-brick path skirting the blossom tree,
divining amongst the knotweed –
taken root like some berserk worm –
a forgotten sense of purpose.
But, with each scrape and blow,
a different sort of discovery – a picture frame,
a chair leg, some inscrutable pottery.
Evidence of a life gone to seed?
What should we deduce from this random archaeology,
these unmade beds? A drink problem?
A rejected lover? A faith unravelled?
Or perhaps, as others said, you just lost the plot.
James Lancaster 