Poems of the Week, Week 2: April by Danielle Hope

For our second set of Poems of the Week, Danielle Hope shares a poem for Bell House.

April

              [ey-pruhl]

Mrs Uomo’s gardening diary instructs her

this is the time to

weed    protect   tie  feed     sow

Mrs Uomo starts

with feed

lips smeared with traces of apricot thumbprint cookie

she reads      

April is a mere mispronunciation

of aperire or Aphrodite

April fool     [ey-pruhl  fool]

1    noun   the victim of a trick on April Fools' Day

2    noun   a jape played on that day

in the post from Mrs Harris                                     

a miniature spaghetti tree

easy to tend as an Aspidistra

last year

a postcard from the island of Garamond

Apron    [ey-pruhn]

1         noun   garment protecting clothing on the front of the body

while cooking       gardening            feeding …

4     noun   furniture’s skirt

5     noun    the golf course’s outer border     full of lost shots 

              20   verb   to surround in the manner of an apron

little word      many meanings

Mrs Uomo’s row of spaghetti trees apron her unweeded lawn

By Danielle Hope

From - Mrs Uomo’s yearbook

(published by Rockingham Press, 2015 )