The Premature Paternity of a Pumpkin Picker by Mary Gilonne

Arts Richmond

Online - 15 September 2020

Come down to where these buttocky buoys

mark out in docile rows a shifting sea of

wind-lashed hedge.

Come now to the laboured limits of your farm,

its waves and troughs boot-deep, wallow

in butternuts.

Come fast, past blank gardens, polyphonic blacks,

forget the stars or gesturing night-noised trees,

covet my curves.

Come touch this earth-silked orange skin, sleek

and gently grooved for harvesting hands, heavy

as milky breasts.

Come follow my glow like an autumned moth.

You sowed your seed on a faithless dawn, now reap.

I’m pregnant with light.

from ABOUT TIME, the 2019 anthology of shortlisted entries from The Roger McGough Poetry Prize. Copies of this Anthology can be purchased for £5 including P&P from Arts Richmond.