Apollo’s Hyacinths
by and published in Edition Five of Pomegranate
Not much of a courtship, this afterwards love.
I come by Tuesdays to the allotments’ gate
in my best coat and scarf, and watch you shove
bulbs into the incipient soil, and wait.
We barely speak – gardening gloves, cuttings, shears –
but what you give me, I can make do with –
those days when the low sun warms my ears
and you bend across with your spartan kiss.
Yet come April, your cheeks are touched with triumph.
Festoons lie about you, bringing the glory days
back from the underworld, and mine the ‘hmph!’
of being planted in the wrong place,
whilst you cherish your unrepeatable trick,
the bloom in your heart that no one can pick.
Laura Marsh
Laura Marsh is articles submissions editor. She was a Foyle Young Poet in 2005 and 2006, and was a runner-up in the Christopher Tower and a winner of the Rialto Young Poets competition both in 2007. She is currently in her third year at Oxford University, where she is reading English. She enjoys near-infallible lack of hand-eye coordination, Patrick Hamilton novels and very long walks in the countryside.