Nettles

I watch the nettles in the garden,

Moved by the mercy

Of a heat-wave gust,

Holly blue blown into sky

Like petals to sea.

Stinging nettles, to shake

The stems with my fist,

Touch the new tips,

It’s hot agony,

A pain known to children,



Accepted as a given –

Where people lay their

Bed sheets, nettles walk.

Dreadlocks of cream seed let

Out puffs into the August

Air, faint as smoke

Or perfume,

Never letting wind burst the casings,

This a release of the

Stinging nettle’s making.