The neighbours are making their rounds.
They tend to their allotments under the allowance
of nature, a certainty in the seasons
as they compensate for the disorder
in their lives: the mislaid decisions
that gave comfort
at the expense of vitality.

James watches them from the bedroom window,
the way everyone walks with a proud hunch.
How the stem of a flower grows into the wind.
Flakes of white paint fall off the windowsill
like sugared almonds: the sweetness
of his anxiety,
the agitation of tobacco.

It is the only patch of green in a mile,
a cell of vegetation behind a locked gate.
A frost threatens and calloused hands
turn to pink cushion, blue extremities
folding tarp: a devoted shelter for
next season's radishes,
whilst the homeless die in the streets.