When I lost loved ones last year
I thought my childhood fears would return.

There’s a house in a suburb of between-the-wars pebble-dash & bay windows, where the soundtrack is sighs, tuts & bellows, the clash of plates & jangle of cutlery.

She gets into your bed
like when she was little.
Flowers grow out of the wardrobe,
moss claims the windowsill

I had a leaf in my hair when I arrived
the receptionist thought it was a hairclip

My Dad Complains That The Hedges Are Overgrown

and the word bemuses me, implying as it does
the concept of excess in what can only be good.

Molluscous receivers, would that you could
turn your talents inwards, and pick up
all that goes on in the cerebral swamp . . .

There’s a
flash of colour
from the hedge.

And when you step into the clearing
 
there will be dancing. The unsteady moon, shaken
to ribbon; shimmering through regalia of clouds.

A buzzard mews, turns in the wind,
a faraway engine grumbles.