‘I bet I could write a poem about this’
I thought, as I tripped and fell
into the keyhole-shaped pond that lies
within the walled garden of Milton Manor
I blame the sandals, a size too large,
and I blame the apparition for waving hello
as it crossed the lawn that Sunday afternoon
within the beautiful walled garden
At that instant before the point of entry
I freeze-framed, and pictured my wife
and daughter, picnicking twenty metres away
beneath the yew tree in the walled garden
The diaphanous girls serving Pimms,
the trad jazz trio, and the cricketers,
flexing their flannels on the square
beyond the walls of Milton Manor
The guests, idling towards the Greek folly,
and settling themselves into the long grass
with peaches and chilled wine, in readiness
for the poetry reading later that afternoon
When the frame melted, the noose tightened
and I fell through a trapdoor of water lilies
into the keyhole-shaped green slime
of the pond within the haunted walled garden
And as poets recited in the shadow of the folly,
nobody heard my cries, nor came a jailer
with a key to unlock the infernal pond that lies
within the walled garden of Milton Manor.