Sue
Finch

               She’s gone.

               And you have asked for her dress.

               They want to tell you to go home.

               Glancing at one another

               across the wide silence,

               each wants to shift the decision

               to the next.

               You hear someone say they will need time.

               Pinned out

               it offers you the shape of her –

               the place where her arm would have lifted

               in a dance, brings tears.

               What you really want

               is the scent of her,

               but in the darkest nights

               only the moon has witnessed it

               diluting, fading.

               You will not eat for days now;

               thorns tighten your throat,

               cold earth fills your nostrils.

               All you can taste

               is feathers on abandoned cobwebs.