Winter Garden

There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies grow

The bathwater smelling of blackberries,
my hair of white nettles, my body
soaped with the scent of green ferns.

We walked in the Botanical Gardens
in winter. Small pink flowers
against the gloom. Berries bloomed,
cherry ripe. You rang, this morning.
There is a garden in this place,
of sorts. A lone honeysuckle
huddles against the frost, that rimes
the unchecked weeds of summer,
brown stalks of lily-of-the-valley.

O ruddier than the cherry,
O brighter than the berry

Tonight I meet you from the plane.
All I can offer, once again,
a winter garden,
the smell of blackberries, green ferns,
white nettles.

from Not Fade Away, Poems 1989-1994. Published by Bloodaxe Books 1994