Apres

She looks outside over the anemones,
whitened skin from aged hands peeling,
like petals of winter, like the
plains of Africa. You watch her now

From a bone-border and velvet photo
frame, but she sees you in the garden,
amongst the weed and the frogs
in the mud, making things, planting

Digging, looking. Damp spreads across
the ceiling. For all your life there
was no age between you, no years,
now your likeness is eggshell and carbon

Against her studied fuchsia, nuance
of soft browns. The elements should
sweep all this away, your overflowing
souvenir boxes, unrepaired door

Handles, forgotten fires. Anemones
will flower and pale, hieroglyphs
sanded down in a way her memories
of you resist, playing in her eyes,
one overcast autumn afternoon