I drop
my keys beside a vase
of indifferent flowers,
clattering on the table
like something cracking.
Peeling off my clothes
for a bath, I notice
my body in the mirror,
curiously whole, as if
unshatterable by loss,
by absence. I scrutinise
myself for what feels
like a long time, almost
amused at how grief
can be hidden; the skin
unmoved in its calm
embrace of bone, lips
stilled between a grin
and a sulk, on the tip
of some deeper expression.
Clutching my hair, then
letting it go, it falls readily
back against the cooled
basin of my brow, instead
of rising to shake like blades
of grass in a hurricane, or
singing like flames – dyed
red, its colour is merely
ironic. And the truth lies
in the roots – black
as unignited coal, black
as the inside of my chest,
as the liquid pupils of my eyes
fast recoiling from all this light.
I drop
