Grave of the Worms

At first I don’t recall

The exact shape of the trees

Or the wicked zest painting your eyes.

My memory is dazed and glowing

The light shooing out what once was my truth.

 

We were harmless in the midday embers.

The trees like Egyptian Gods watching over us,

Rays of Ra cutting through the fingers of the trees.

The sun blew a kiss down from the sky

And framed us perfectly into that serene moment.

 

The garden was our jungle, our infinite play-pen

Imaginations mingling, the garden exploded and

Whatever we touched became something new.

The soil quicksand, Yew a bean stalk,

We were giants. We were giants.

 

Rabid grins and fingernails caked with mud

We clawed as the worms crawled

We dug as the slaters darted.

There was innocence upon your deaths.

As the same sun which warmed our backs

Left you hard, crusted and blackened on the terracotta ground.

 

I think this memory sticks the most.

The worms scorched and melted into the stone.

Lined up so orderly it was as if

We had planned your deaths to an exact precision.

We hadn’t, but we never learned.

 

This poem eulogises those worms

For my mind is clear out of respect.

But as soon as I close my eyes

The sun, again, strokes my back

And I blister lovingly.