Wheelbarrow

after William Carlos Williams

Ours is green with a battered lip, a dribbling
of old cement, speckles of rust.

It’s parked beside the patio doors – red
curtain hoiked to one side – glazed

with a kind of stoicism. White chickens
scratch through nettles outside.

So much depends on this one too –
piled with logs of ash and oak and a toupée

of dead broom, it’s the measure
of our winter warmth:

flames sketch out our daughters
sprawled at homework, our three cats

curled in their favourite chairs,
you and I trying to kindle

words and sentences, to make amends
until one of us must brave the cold

to clack across the doorsill,
set the chassis on the floor.

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