We hoped for surfeit, epic globes, a bounty
so ribbed and basketballed,
uprooting it would launch us backwards,
making soil-angels in the rich pudding earth,
clutching the yield to our chests like kids
we had saved from drowning. We trusted
our harvest would be whimsical; carrots
bearded like Border Terriers, veg so fertile
it frowned like a facial composite. To claim
we got the opposite would not be the full story
but we were gloomy then, ambitions of first prize
fete rosettes crumbling as the spade clanged
out another return of dull chaffs
like dried bugs from a family heirloom. For once
we had enjoyed a common goal, a shared hobby.
Had planned, laboured, feeding
our allotted ground with mounds of kelp,
pounded egg shell, dark tea bogged down to molasses.
We stared mournfully at the disturbed plot,
assessing the drab lot at our feet, the conception
that what we had reaped was not what we’d sowed.
That evening we made supper from our gleanings,
joking about sows ears and silk purses,
but were muted as the huge pan bubbled
under the harsh kitchen light.
I held up the crooked husk;
a weird, long, dishwater thing,
knuckled like a finger; new born; senescent. Afterwards
as we lay in bed, I thought of the beans
rolling round our plates, their alien autopsy colour.
It was then I was jolted by an oscillation inside me,
a throb like a smothered orchestra. You stirred
on your side and I placed my splayed palm
across your belly – a middle aged man’s paunch,
stretched from years of home brew.
But the swelling felt different:
tighter, somehow significant. And I felt it in you:
that same strange movement, undulation. I timed
our two throbbings till they rhythmed in tandem
then dropped off to a deep sleep, comforted
by our peas-in-a-podness, dreaming of surfeit.