This afternoon I pruned the fig

        This afternoon I pruned the fig

        cutting back hard into its old grey wood.

        Honing the blade on secateurs until it

        could have smoothed stubble at my throat.

        Slicing cleanly numb snap-frozen

        tuberous limbs with the dull flat note

        of a plucked or almost-broken string.

        The upper branches already taken off

        without permission from a low overcast sky

        that will later drip from white windowsills.

        The quicksilver of evening clouds

        in uneven filigrees of blunted needles

        window-glass curtained with white frost.

        The brush of cars on a distant highway

        mimics primitive woodwind

        while beyond the house

        on the grey-black parchment of a road

        the flattened upturned quaver of a bird.

These poems are from my new collection IN THE APRICOT DARKNESS (view the cover and contents below in my recent posts). They are now being published individually, daily under 'recent posts' on my blog and will be available shortly as an eBook that can be read online or downloaded for free.