1. A Swarm
With the wind at my back
the chestnut leaves
run
away
from
me
scampering mice
spooked by the coming storm
2. Fairy Dell
The massacre was down the laneway
The shady one near the primary school
The colours of rusted iron bleed into the cement
Around the nubs of the wings
Dozens fallen from the overhanging sycamore
Helicopter pods the size and shape of fairy wings
The shoulder blades too knifed off in rounded buds
The feathery edges gentle on the ground
3. The Spiky Ones
Plane trees
bomb the road not
smooth like ball bearings
trip hazards like ball bearings
landmines in wait the shape of a virus
with all the evil spikiness rough as a pangolin
dropped there to catch the unwary
once the temperature
falls each year
without fail
4. Fossil Heart
Concrete is not a blank canvas
for the artwork underfoot
already striated by the last sweep of the trowel
in the manner of shading scratched
across an etching
A surface not yet dried
before the leaf fell
became caught and died
bequeathing an impression of itself
preserved as if in stone
as if it’d fallen foul of the Mafia
Just the one from the Lombardy Poplars
a fat art nouveau heart
an arrow pointing towards the lake
A fossil reminder when all the trees are gone