Sunken Lane
By now I have walked a gash into the earth
between the flat and the clinic. Aching eyes closed
I can see it, garden walls brambling to hedgerows,
traffic lights into trees, interlaced in a tunnel.
Wild things are beginning to chitter in the corners,
gone when I blink. Again and again we walk
down the hill for no good news, numbers
red on the scale, a brand I will burn under my fingers
in the small hours. He lies quiet and patient. A seed
curled in dry earth. Oh forgive me, for I did not know
I would be a bad gardener. I did not mean
to be a drought.
Rachel Jeffcoat is a Hampshire-based poet whose work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including most recently Tears in the Fence and The Interpreter's House, and is forthcoming in Under the Radar, Clarion, Off the Chest's Spaces of Significance anthology, and a Ten Poets anthology by Sidekick Books.
Comments