There are things she
can't remember:
the bills, the demitasse of
strong black coffee growing
cold on a carved drop-leaf stand.
But in early mornings
late in another summer,
she remembers his
face like a fine portrait,
she remembers his love.
She lets it in like daylight
through a
vertical blind.
Winters and summers
and winters again have
poured into her room, linear
blocks of light.
Winters and summers and
winters again have died.
She can feel him still, the
cup of his hands on her skin.
His arms around her, homed
to her waist, a perch in waiting.

She can hear the sounds of summer
collapsed into the sea beneath
the beauty of the sun.

Her smile, he knew.
And it returns like none before
or after. It catches, as quick
as a breath, alive as a hummingbird
against the windowglass.
Through the wooden blinds
a film of air,
translucent as it is, throws
light against a thousand tiny drops
of dust floating in the sitting room.
She reaches
to the thin louver dowel to
turn the slats, and it is gone.
Winters and summers and winters
again, have died.
Winters and summers
and winters again are born.

01 oct 2000