Melt
by and published in Edition Ten of Pomegranate
The sweet familiarity of fallen fruits and bare trees lingered in our garden,
It was a quick glimpse realised in a moment, a flash flood crashing to the fences
You were soon to be invisible; your misty form tip toeing over the lawn in the morning sun as the
Neighbours left to play tennis, I remember you slumped over the nightingale statue, peeing into
Their pond at night, worshipping some false garden goddess on your knees
I waited for you in the cellar where sheets of hard frost clasped the walls,
Overturned crates and caskets spilt out the pickings of our last harvest;
(In winter we collected fruits anticipating some nourishment but the pears
Got sleepy and melted from the inside out)
The darkening nights cast doubt upon the low sun as it sank and scurried from the half-light
Your hair was a thicket of gold in autumn’s crown, you lay still as dew tumbled down your
Crescent spine, melted by the coming light as that pagan cycle had predicted
I watched you go that morning, ashamed as you tried to remember what was said,
I sat and eyed the reflection of the sky rising in the steam of glistening tiles
Fresh from a shower of new rain, knowing you would not come again
My heart was a fallen fruit, sleepy and melting from the inside out.
Antony Hurley
Antony Hurley is 20 years old and currently studying at Trinity College Dublin but is originally from Kent, England. Apart from writing poems he also pens songs in a band called ‘Our Feathered Embers’. He believes Nick Drake is the greatest songwriter ever to have lived.