You lean over the table and touch my hair,
ease it from my face, flick it down my neck.
Beautiful,you say, though the colour's mixed
by Carys at the salon, daubed onto my roots.

We eat while I window gaze, the ice-pink sky
slushing to grey, the day in transit between light
and dark as night tows it across the afternoon,
discards shadows of where I walked and stood.

Shoppers to and fro along the pavement, edge
further from the sun with each footfall and turn
of a baby buggy wheel and I'm lost,slip-sliding,
paring time into remainders. I  tell you how I feel

knowing it's Autumn, our favourite season; October,
the month we were married all those years ago.
You look surprised,disappointed,but when I ask
you smile, shake your head, speak of other things.