The Garden

Just for a quarter of the day, I'd have you

follow me through the smoking willow herb

and my father's garden's half-seized gate, down 

to that place where the knowledge of almost every-


thing comes undone in the powdery ceanothus shade,

where the apple goes withering back to blossom

in your palm, and the serpent, on his hind legs

in the shadows, leaves off whispering.

from Grain (Picador, 2009), ? John Glenday 2009, used by permission of the author and the publisher.

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