Tuesday Poem – Believe him the gardener by Loveday Why

Teeth stripped stems percussive: tooth comb, fish bone,
fingered little globes of surfacing blood,

less than arterial, the pricks of gorse,
bright brilliance we could burst, skin’s checked force.

Lost in the bush, I was calm – now I wake
charged with a crazy person’s worry shake,

while, undiverted, you work hand and fist,
milking tight stems into pots, grip and twist,

whitely biting fruit to make juice. Firefly!
now maddens with flung orbs the magnet sky,

tiny red planets sucked up, hung in luck.
Count the clustered stars, blood points of our trust.

Red juice pools soft in the well of your lip,
sweat beads your bare feet like clear berries strung.

Wading Roti’s hot skies, ocean soaked locks,
drookit, mealie meal, arms spears, board a shield,

heart bursts. Rapt children run so fast from you,
their feet leave redcurrants on the rocks.

Loveday is a published UK poet and a 2006 recipient of the Derek Walcott Prize for poetry. Believe him the gardener is a self-contained unit of a wider conversation on poetry, the rest of which can be found at the Like Starlings website.

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