Gardeners’ World is on TV

A sign language interpreter is stood
in the top corner of the screen. She plucks
and scoops at the air, her movements filling
the space speech has swept clear. In the picture
beside her, is a garden paradise,
where palm-leaves stretch out across a footpath,
and soft succulents stoop to touch the floor.

It makes me think about the oranges
that you sliced each morning, with their skins stacked
on the kitchen side. About the jumpers
you kneaded like dough, your back curved over
the bathtub edge. That was the paradise
you built for me, while the vowels of what we
couldn’t say were being shaped with your hands.