you speak of grasshoppers,
and fireflies, that sharp scent
of hard and sudden rains –
all the things that do not
set their blessings here,
or rarely do anyway
the impossibility of elsewhere
is no longer a vague notion –
the truth of it rests on my chest –
the spiny, black hull
of a horse chestnut dropped
on a damp and chill morning
© Sarah Whiteley