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.
