A shoal of silvery sardines
press tight together
for protection from dolphins.
They need fear no-one
in this tomato sauce sea.

While motives for the act are so far hid
and wiser souls evade me or say nought,
I struggle to account for what you did -
unkind of deed or negligent of thought.

Perceiving in my scaly coat a *****,
you cast your blow with subtlety and art;
ere pity stayed your hand or bade you think,
you etched a bleeding cross upon my heart.

And as that ***** falters to the worse,
sole poultice that would salve the wound escapes.
For you were both my soul-mate and my nurse;
bereft of you my heart grows still, then breaks.

I wish that in our bliss I'd used more care!
In loving you too well I laid me bare.

This bag of lavender
that comforted you in your last days
has comforted me since.
Over the years it has lost its scent
but still, on country strolls,
the smell of fresh lavender stirs
memories.

My body spins on a potter's wheel
as my mind slims, sculpts and refines:
a groove here, a lip there.
When I am almost ready to fire
I add another lump of clay
and start refining anew.
I remain a work in progress.

My grandfather's clock strikes,
but no time passes here.
He knows each mote, each hue,
where sunlight hits each morning and eve.
Here my melodies are echoes; my metaphors rehearsed.
Only in the garden do seasons pass,
do flighty visitors come for lunch.
With my grandmother went movement and now all is preserved, still, suspended.
My grandfather is waiting:
the dust in his study as ashes in her favourite flowerbed.