Ahead of Us

After Chemo

Your hair is falling like thin rain,

like mizzle, like long, silent,

lightening snow. An invisible waterfall,

your hair cascades

or lifts away from you

like gossamer, like an inkbrush

gifting new patterns to the floors,

furring our mouths, our thickening thoughts,

our almost-said words.

 

In each corner of each room,

swirled across the tiles,

I find them, these networks,

these fine cobwebs of you;

they’re flowering down your clothes:

every jumper, every skirt,

even your socks are

laced with these filaments,

hair like slender moths,

like will o the wisp,

these fine threads of you,

drifting away…

 

And our lives are fastened

by more shadows

than we cast.

Your hair

lisps like autumn blossom,

aspects of the you

you used to be

on racks in the wardrobe,

alert in the trembling air.

Just outside the bedcovers,

the you you were, seeming intact

 

but in fact

we are as we are

together, alone, as you can see,

with elusive memories for company,

with your wisps of hair

disappearing as gently as breath.