.





I




His daughter’s eyes
        never seemed to tremble
                -her mouth was a bloodless white line.











II



Charles and Emily cooked after the holidays had passed
and she laid down cutlery.

While he cooked lamb with rosemary, new potatoes and peas,
followed by
rice-water
and coconut milk through a quill.














III


Silent phone calls fall
on a litter, made of bamboo poles,
– calls about specimens and the skins and skeletons
of wicker chairs
that clutter up the spacious library.

Melissa didn’t come quite as easily
the second time around
His name became sacrament,
the thrust, her atonement
and her voice came down from
under the bright circle of white light,

the spiral staircase, the request for further disgrace,

rootless with the furious gasping

of taking in the air,
of breathing in,
                breathing out,
but breathing.













IV



Her kindness

gathered in on itself, till the air was thick and heady with it.

-–In spite of that once perfect morning–
a huge sense of loss overcame her

and wiped tears

-–rain across a bleak landscape–

clung wetly to her palm.














V



Richard would tell them

he’d learnt something of

lighting fires with a hand-lens

had mailed his letter

–even before he had left–

a month after we’d met

in a hope it would arrive before he returned.



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