Gardening

Destroy the plants. Lay waste to all that’s green:

each vicious, thorny branch; each overgrown,

ambitious, overblown and too-tall nettle;

the scratching, scraping, stinging, silent army

of pestilential chaos; terrorize

the undergrowth with garden fork and rake;

wield secateurs in safely leathered hands;

annihilate the deadened stump which waits

to trip; and halt this garden’s never-ending,

incessant, slow, perpetual growth. Complete

this pastoral devastation, until all

that’s left is pinned-back, black plastic, concealing

the surface: brown, uneven, halted, still.