I.

They will give you some advice: forget your
flowers and wasted hours. These cage you in
a curtained world where not one eye peeps in,
where you pop pills by the short windowsills
and tremble the netting. There is no breath
that cannot be seen on that pane. Deep night:
when cold moves closer to the fingertip.
When everything suspends. You were thin.

Remember the snow that night? Over those
counted spans I stood smoking as it fell.
Silence; the glint of morning felt distant.
There was sleep: settling snow slept in beds.
If you recall me there – forget that I
knew you were awake, twitching at your hair.


Simon Peter Everett, 2010 ©