You are slanting like light
Across my memory
Colours undimmed
Turquoise and orange of photos
In an album shut since those Seventies summers
Detail gnawed thin by regrets we daren’t revisit.
Thermometer cannot rise to this,
Mercury shimmers, flat figures flickering.
That ladybird plague, the greenfly gorged on every stem
Pets crawling the paths, fur full of wings,
Seeking the refugee shade.
You are parching my tongue
With tears uncried
You are here, even now,
Luminous, crepuscular
You are sunfast.
