A useless art,
yet half the world
has mastered it.
Small plants
to occupy the foreground,
a pine-needle fence.
Bracken uncurls
to a thin tree; a salient
overlooks the world.
She must resist
the urge to place a stone
like a ruin, big as her fist.
Seedheads, a line
of sorrel poplars, where a lake
of mirror shines
in its still place
at the centre – the phoney water
she can fill with her face.
Send Letters To:
The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN
letters@lrb.co.uk
Please include name, address, and a telephone number.