Weekly my hands work in her dirt.

The soil, sometimes fertile, says gravity takes all.

I remember her skin sagging like a lost kite,

her head wrinkled, dangling thin from her body.

 

The soil, sometimes fertile, says gravity takes all.

I prune the tulips in winter:

heads wrinkled, dangling thin from the stems.

I edge around her stone. Finger her soil, turn it.

 

I’ve pruned the tulips in winter,

swept the snow from her polished head; my hands,

edging around her stone, fingered her soil, turned it

soft as cotton, begging the growth of spring.

 

I’ve swept the snow from her young head

with a mitten or the end of my scarf,

softest cotton; begging the push of spring.

Like her body, once mine, now gone to seed.

 

With a mitten or the end of my scarf

I’d tap her blushed face, play her like a kitten.

Her body (like mine, now going to seed)

frays and rots despite this quiet tending.

 

 

First published in New Leaf 23 (2007) revised for V: An Anthology of International Writing From Edinburgh (2007) and published in Tomorrow, We Will Live Here, 2010.