‘The death of the sun
is the death of the shadow
I lost him
in so many
different ways’
She tells me of him,
She looks storm struck, maybe she is.
Sometimes I tell myself
‘He will be back in a month’
After a month?
I will think of a new story
to cut down this dark door
from where no words
come from him.
Her grief is not private
Her tears ransacked
by our need to consume,
but she had some more
to shed
when she took me
to her inner chamber
in front of his shy smiling framed photograph.
She addresses herself
‘There she is
she has survived him
The muse surviving
the lover, there in the corner
is a new photoprint
of an old picture
young, happy, together.’
He is said to have looked at it every day,
from his deathbed
mind wandering, thought of them together
He didn’t have the patience
to grow out of his chemo
The swan song
is always, the next one in a dream
He longed for her moment
in his head he scribbled notes
for the best character.
She turns over in her sleep
getting into the skin.
Of each scribbled notes of his
she weaves a skin.
Now she asks of him
to come in her dream
and spread out the play for her
with no ambivalence.
