We’d see him digging in tweeds, as gangly
as a trellis of snap beans, his footprints
like sinkholes in the earth. This is where
the plots thickened; his tie slung over his
collar, his shoulder pressed to the shovel.
Tired of the schoolroom, he swapped
chalk for trowel, tending the sorrel coming
up for air. The allotment was his Innisfree,
humming tunelessly with the bees, bothered
only by robins and chiffchaffs. Unlike Yeats,
he knew that one bean-row was enough.
But it never seemed to do him good.
As sickly as a blighted marrow, his skin was
pale as parsnip. Sometimes, we’d see him
scribble, or glance to the left and right, as if
his characters were digging beside him.
He never quite got it right: his shallots
and broad beans would always fail but
he produced enormous quantities of peas.
