The Hot Life


Hot feet
burn tracks
up back field
to top allotments

where cabbages pant
peas cook on stems
and tomatoes need liberating
from greenhouses.

The dust is thirsty
for mangoes and coffee.


Our garden
is new to us and we
haven’t got a key.

I peek past
railway sleepers
barbed wire
and sawn-off garage doors

into a plot
of unnatural boundaries

like the straight borders
of an African State.

Hot of the interior
forges tall grasses
to pokers that stir the sky.

Neighbouring protectorates
have arsenals
of upturned cider bottles

that mirage to ice-lollies on sticks,
clonking at crop theft
like Lake Malawi
up-under coupled canoes.


My daughter
sleeps in her pram,
a star éclair
seeking breath of air.

I extend her parasol
with muslin squares

mindful of my garden in Luwinga
with turquoise lizards,
bananas and poinsettia

and wonder
how much hot
she will need to know.


I close my eyes
and feel the white touch
of the slight breeze.





Version 1

Words for Hot


What sort of hot
snaps the lawn underfoot?

Blanches English flowers
to shades of can’t be bothered?

Drains the sky
to half-hearted blue?

Cabbages pant,
peas cook on the stem,
tomatoes need liberating
from greenhouses:

the gardens are thirsty
for bougainvillea.


Our allotment
is new to us and we
haven’t got a key

so I peek past
railway sleepers
barbed wire
and sawn off garage doors

into a plot
of unnatural boundaries

like the straight borders
of an African State.

What sort of hot
of the interior
doesn’t bend tall grasses

but forges them to pokers
that stir the air?

The neighbouring protectorates
have arsenals
of upturned cider bottles




that mirage to ice-lollies on sticks,
clunking at crop theft
like the Mediterranean
under a pedalo.


My daughter
in her pram
is in the swing
of her siesta

I extend her parasol
with muslin squares

mindful of my garden in Luwinga
with turquoise lizards,
bananas and poinsettia

and wonder
how many sorts of hot
she will need to learn.

I close my eyes
and feel white,
close to the slight breeze.