29 JUNE 1985, Page 28

In the Garden

I am bitten by the thorns of the roses.

They hang about my jacket in a fierce clutch of claws, invisible and catlike.

My knuckles are a red astronomy.

Such stars, such stars, such a new galaxy.

Prudence, my friend, does the rose mean so much, and is perfection worth the sour thorns?

Somewhere I can hear a dog barking at the invisible cat high in the rose tree.

lain Crichton Smith