The Necklace Garden
By Paul Cameron Brown
For my part, I spied red berries
on a currant bush
lush in August;
the canopy of leaves
a nesting place for hornets
clocking one hundred
in & out of their ice-castle hive.
Birds had fled in horror,
there was a pallor
around the sun
and nearby a Hubbard squash
grew like Topsy
already several baskets in size.
I threatened suicide
in this herbivorous garden
amid wild canaries and butternuts;
my jangled nerves a lobster colour
only calmed by more grievously
afflicted tobacco hornworms,
their skins pierced by the radar alum
of wasps.
Transformed into insect angels
strumming away the afterlife,
they arrived as ghosts to comfort me.
Fresh, spring potatoes grew like serendipity
under a pleasant summer sky.
The smell of good earth
revived above
the saltpetre muddle
of the humanoid puzzle.
Later, the night became a lavender cloak,
her folds sweet orifices
of a pleasure bound woman.