The Green Shed
Time hasn’t left well enough alone.
Unopened for years,
the padlock
still clutches to its rusted latch.
After such a passage,
it’s hard to tell
what manner of life
has taken residence inside.
When I was a boy, hornets
rooted a nest within.
I’d listen with my ear on the door
to their ordered singing.
When the doors were opened,
you had to run
to allow the hornets time to scatter.
Behind the shed,
I’d sit on a cinderblock
amongst the snakeroots.
If I go there again,
it’s to listen for those drones.
To hide where I hid as a child.
To hear their chorus,
soft-pedaled in their song-making.
Read Matthew Haughton's previous work in Still
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