The garden dwellers are in revolt.


there, a chrysalis on a twig shoot  
and a lorry train of ants dragging that dead body of a beetle
but it is not the body that is dead, it is only a skeleton, a hollow casing
pulled along the highway lines of the octagonal pavement
to the nest that stands like the Dahshur pyramid.
The Queen is carried on the backs of slaves.

Is it dangerous to walk there, down that thorny avenue of roses?


reminiscing over the regret of a lust for death
what is it, absent, another layer of displacement
as you dig beneath,
this garden, this prickly avenue
the soil is drenched with autumn leaves and deepens,
it is dangerous, I am buried in it.