(for Harry Holmes)
It waited, rope choked, humped on sand.
It harboured old aromas and
spread sweated recollections in the sun.

Such scents haunt corners tucked in time,
lie low as smoke between pruned vines
yet cling like wet-net webs night spiders spun

face high between glazed orange trees.
Like board-floored Stores and rosemary
warm jute turned time around and slow years flowed

back upstream through a bag that held
more ghosts than oranges and smelled
like mid-September, forty years ago.