Roger Jones

The Landlady

Mrs. Lastry’s garden is small, well-kept. A metal sign with a poem, and a statue of St Francis holding a lamb, perched in one corner, amid flowering lilies. By the shed, hoes, rakes, rusting trowel and gloves rest against a small wooden table. Mrs. Lastry’s eighty – a tall, upright German woman widowed for years. Quietly stern but compassionate. Even when not here, still present.

behind the tall fence
where we hit our ball
sunflowers