Of course my water stopped working during a heatwave

This week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes was forced to forgo showers and clean water when her neighbour accidentally turned off her stopcock

WATER

Showerless,

I tried to sweat less. Water was there

When I left the house, sitting in pipes,

Cooling beneath the floorboards, supplying flushes and cleaning teeth.

But two hours later the kitchen tap opened to gasps of air

Because there was nothing there.

Mains fed it was a dry throat,

While other basins filled from the pool in the loft

As it drained to its silt like a beach

As the tide recedes.

Three men puzzled over the leakless lack of evidence

And a garden stopcock that answered no questions.

One dug a hole big enough to uncover no problems

And bury a large dog quite deep.

Stickily, as my hair crisped, another day passed.

A neighbour mentioned his stopcock left his water on.

He’d oiled and cleaned and twisted it, wondering at its uselessness

Until its head almost snapped off, not seeing that it wasn’t his.

He’d blindly severed the artery that crossed the street to me.

When I showed him the garden pit, mortified

He looked as if he’d like to throw himself into it.