I am to be vamped.
Between the flobalobs and the flimflam
I will preside, a garden tsarina, a dimmock
in the space between the spades.
Bill will not empty his toolshed.
Ben is passing the paraquat
and banging nails in an empty trellis.
I will therefore resume
direct rule. I will round up "Ground Force"
and attend to the borders myself.
The gardener will wear an old ulster,
and tend the timeclock, the skullcap,
the bittersweet, the touch-me-not,
the false oxlip, the stinking iris,
the farewell-to-spring.
And the hurt.
