The Porch

There used to be a porch: brown wood, it would splinter.

The cat’s treasures, minks, mice, ermine, laid waste, fertile and soured, beneath old boards.

The railings were first to go, sodden, chunks they were turned to mush; each fell slow when we kicked them.

The world, teeming beneath the dead porch, breathed slow. The stench of earth crawling damp with worms and cardboard.

Mother saw it bountiful. The post holes seethed of lupine. Stones, smooth from being wet, lined green and edged the plot and lilies grew long in the shadow of the yellow house.

Time crawled, the sun rose round and we forgot; and where its shadow had been, the porch delivered thistle chives. And the cat concealed her antique vermin.