Stephanie Grieve 2014
Since she lost her little girl
my friend counts time
instead of sleeping
in hours
as well as days:
about a thousand now, just over.
As a child, time loops
and loops
refusing to be tethered.
Aged five, our Zoë tries to shape it
imagines it perhaps
as an oblong between birthdays.
And don’t you think I know
that as I race, stretching it to fit
I am being disrespectful?
That I will wake one day
unable to rise
paralysed by the pain of it:
this insistence
on looking back, glorifying
temps perdu
the constant search for it
by tying things up
to the present
She lives up North now’days. Couple of labs for company.
Even this perfume reminds me
of our trip three months ago
impossible brilliance
the sky every bit as azur
as that eponymous coast.
Late Spring promising the world
to silken lovers lying
on daybeds, limbs and perfect youth
displayed under orange umbrellas.
We returned via that long-haul washing machine
to Winter, grief
the trick of hemispheres.
Low cloud rolling in
over our thin strip of island
making set to stay.
Now we collect the instants as memories
like broken shells from the beach
as many as the palm can hold.
In old age, time seems to doze
an afternoon nap
then suddenly, dusk.
