The weather is unseasonably cold,
the flat’s floorboards cold. In the garden
the courgette flowers but fails to fruit.
The tomatoes hang green and heavy,
like water bombs. Everywhere the boughs bend,
the elder with its black beaded bunches,
its little popping mice eyes.
The crooked old pear across the street
is having a stellar season, lit up
like a winter tree with row upon row
of olive green light bulbs. No one comes
or the boughs are too high. In disgust
it is chucking them on the road.

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