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The Garden (3)

The garden,
That I can see from our bedroom
As I fold your once freshly cleaned laundry,
That sat in the machine for three days,
Is starting to spill over.

The varnish
That once kept the fence a mahogany brown,
Has begun to peel away from the wooden lattice,
The new white speckles
Revealing its cheap lumber base.

Your bike
Is propped up against it.
Each time you drag it there,
It peels more of the varnish away.
Through the grass,
The woodchips seem to be travelling
Like a colony of your creation,
Like the mould that hides under the sink
Although I asked you to clean it last week.

I asked you to wipe it –
I even bought the sprays and spritzes,
A little vial of air freshener,
So that we could pretend that it had never been there at all.

Later, you said, as you flicked through the channels.
Please, now, I replied. I just want it done.
Five minutes, and it’s over.
Five minutes; wipe down the underside of the sink,
So that I don’t have to worry
About the little growths spreading to the shower
Every night.

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