By Mark Fiddes

Back in my mother’s garden,  

the fences were always broken 

as the whole of creation clambered in 

with tendrils and buried nests  

and shanks of love-lies-bleeding. 

Star-bright stock, always night-scented, 

lit the crazy paving to a fern bank, 

where toads with golden eyes  

guarded my tomato crop disaster. 

Ivy followed us all the way indoors 

with moths that slept in lampshades. 

Beetles fell from our homework. 

Chrysalides glistened in sock drawers. 

Lawns and borders were outlawed 

being too needy and English.  

Any frost chose its victims sparingly. 

Every Spring tasted of honey,  

long before the arrival of bees. 

Geraniums thrust through rubble  

so green was the blade of her knife.  

The harder the stem was cut,  

the stronger it grew back. 

In her hands, life was inevitable 

until her fingers grasped only ours 

over the bedrail. She coughed 

then turned her back once more. 

Also, clematis, mint, mallow, foxgloves, 

elderberry, phlox and delphiniums.