I must believe that death

will not come this way.

The coughing, the wheezing

inability to breathe,

they’re all for the moment,

for her to look back on

and smile ruefully

about those frightful times.

 

She loves her garden.

She smiles a painful smile

as the greenhouse arrives,

a gift for the future

when her excitement

reduces disease to memories

and she has grown her seeds,

planted them out,

observed her flowering

labours under the canopy

with a white wine by her side.

 

But the coughing continues,

the breathing is halting,

the weakness takes over.

The greenhouse, newly erected

with painted shelves

and plastic pots

sits stripped of life.

 

Seed packs, geraniums,

runner beans, flowers

I’ve never heard of,

bought on her last trip,

gripped in her eager hands,

now lie neatly stacked

as the door swings with a creak

in the evening breeze.

 

 

Michael Chapman - August 2018