38

Tomato plants in grey & green
Hessian sacks in black clotted soil
That is littered with cherry blossom
& fertiliser pellets & shed flakes
Of insects like onion skins the
Blossoms brown & dry like little
Toffees there are blights on the outer
Leaves or maybe watermarks burned
In by sun & the leaves collect up
Into a crown of bristling shoots
At the stem-end like the apex
Of a fountain in an ornamental pond
Breaking messily into the air & the
Warm light of morning shows veins
In the wet innards of the leaves
& from the mulch things crawl
Transluscent & whisky-brown like lumps
Of caramel & heat in the sunlight
& their glassy organs are poised inside
Their bodies as if preserved in amber