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.