If when you go to the barber today
He asks if you’d like him to ‘tidy up your ears’,
Think of all the wildest sprawling vegetation
That will never be tidied, or trimmed, by clippers or shears,

High up, out of reach,
on a branch, no, more a twig,
a little wizened, shrunken face leers down.

not the kind you eat with
but useful to turn the soil
root out potatoes or carrots

My Father Bought a Signal Box
dismantled it piece by piece
then sold the wood, as a job lot.

we hug and i act cool
as the american fridge ice
shattering on kitchen tiles

Scrolling through my inbox I hold down
the shift key, select all and mass delete
briefly feel the repose of the therapist’s couch.

Hope lies like the edge of a teaspoon, upward facing, a thickness
perhaps enough solidness to knife
through a banana or other soft fruit

a wooden door slams shut in my brain
a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago

When I was born
the house was full
of stones, an old blacksmiths shed.