Love and a shed

Many years ago (when I was still at school) I wrote a poem about my love interest at the time. The poem was published by the Dartington Press and I was chosen along with other young poets to be featured on BBC Spotlight South West to read it out.  I haven't written many romantically inclined poems since but the following one is about the deep affection which flows from a long relationship and the good humour which can be felt even in the midst of reluctantly joining in with a heavy allotment task. I guess that's Love.


Moving the shed.

 This home to spiders and a long abandoned wasps' nest
with its potato fork and spades,

 tins and jars stacked on the old kitchen table
has to be moved, you say, six feet across

 some horizontal struts and a midden
of empty snail shells which crack and crunch underfoot

 as we push and push and shove.
And as some temporary battens are fixed

 to the wooden panels to help with the lifting,
I can see you thinking how good it will be,

 the new and the old, side by side.
There against all the odds we've done it.

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