Urban Physic Garden

Weighed down by last night’s rain, it sprawls
and overflows the terracotta
 
leaving just a globe of knots
erect, its seed-clutch, swaying dangerously.
 
Letting the filigree trail
against my palm, I cut handfuls for garnish,
 
each strand a traced blood-vein,
a web of backroads pencilled into the mapbook.
 
 
John Clegg
(From Herbarium, a new poetry anthology. Launch and reading 22 July)