As if aware of death,

nature threw a shroud over things

best forgotten. Like the time,

sunk on Plymouth Gin,

you opened your lungs to the moon

and dashed a tumbler on the rockery.

Or when, with nerves splayed,

you flung some unloved vase

at next-door’s cat; missing,

they said, by a whisker.

 

Aware only of ourselves,

we arrived with shears and trowel,

creating order, sifting debris.

Discovering, beneath a veil of earth,

a red-brick path skirting the blossom tree,

divining amongst the knotweed -

taken root like some berserk worm -

a forgotten sense of purpose.

 

But, with each scrape and blow,

a different sort of discovery - a picture frame,

a chair leg, some inscrutable pottery.

Evidence of a life gone to seed?

What should we deduce from this random archaeology,

these unmade beds? A drink problem?

A rejected lover? A faith unravelled?

Or perhaps, as others said, you just lost the plot.