Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Runner-up - Sue Butler

Sue Butler is a keen cyclist, walker and gardener. She has been lucky enough to work in many exciting places, including Russia, Uzbekistan, China, Sri Lanka, America and Malaysia. Sue won an Eric Gregory Award and her first collection Vanishing Trick was published by Smith Doorstop. She currently lives in Hertfordshire and works as a copywriter.

Germination

You split logs, crumple The Times, read again
how Guantanamo detainees pour water,
let it soak in overnight, use plastic spoons
to scratch enough earth, press in seeds
saved from meals: pepper, cantaloupe, lemon.
It’s old news. Your grandfather’s
seven years hard labour became ten,
when gulag guards searched the hut roof,
found three apple pips planted in cans
he’d bartered for bread. You strike a match.

Back in Kharkov, free but coughing blood,
your grandfather grafted, taught you
to heel in tiny saplings, excited
by an orchard of cherries
he’d never taste. He died digging up turnips.
You close the stove, stay crouched
by your weeping grandmother, in the yard
where the tap had burst. For days
she wouldn’t speak, just carved the ice
into a frieze of sunflowers and life-size trees.