THE SCARF

She is dust, seeding the careless wind
the form of absence is her presence now
yet her living essence lingers, real to sense
in the fibres of her scarf.
I touch, caress, and breathe her in,
fold her round me in unfriendly sleep
the sense of her, as ever stubborn, clings
to this last fragment of our earthly things.
I miss the flesh and blood of her, but deeper still
I miss the light behind her eyes
her spirit, her mind,
and yes oh yes her loving touch.
Men just can't do scarves, she used to say
at mine in hopeless, schoolboy disarray
I do now.

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