A Departure
The lawn is overgrown,
grass sprouts like unruly hair,
the flowerbed bare
where a patient trowel turned the soil
gently, neatly.
Intermittently,
white sticks
like little gravestones
mark the spot where come spring
green shoots will rise out of earth
from inert bulbs buried there.
Scraps of shrubs.
And there
perching precariously on spiked stilts
petals of vermilion velvet.
Paint peeling from eaves
recovering from sunburn of summer,
drawn blinds
and something emerging through the doorway
between two men.
I remove my cap.
Blackbirds lift from a tree, sound
an ironic round of applause.
James R Kilner‘s first collection of poems, Frequencies of Light, is out now. He is a former newspaper journalist and holds a PhD from the University of Leeds. Originally from Yorkshire, he now lives on Tyneside. Please visit www.jameskilnerwriter.wordpress.com.