For K.
Your pages rise like pantry moths.
Curdled cream edges and veiny ink
pock to sores, sealed with vinegar.
I flick pages where you are trapped
beneath a faded paisley cloche of curtains,
dry white ceiling and windows too high
to glimpse the garden beyond
the sickbed where you replayed every waking moment.
Your words web at the window you could not
reach, weave bitter bridges, snap names in vain.
The book is a fist you could not curl. You twirled
between the pages, growing thin, the next phase of decay
never within. I turn the page, the delicate twist
your haughty bell, ringing demands. I watch, silent,
as you make love to your sheets, blot the imagined lover’s name,
sneer at your mother as she changes you, scold sister, brother
for going beyond your grip. I cannot show anyone
what is not my right to see. I remember spotting you once,
akimbo with the indignity, wordless then. I pry again,
peel your layers of patient study, magazines ordered,
the books too heavy to hold, determined to hone edges
to your tongue, beyond the fear. You commanded music
while the rattle drilled your chest, the porcelain dolls watching on.
Disease is all loss and labour. Your eye, your hand,
a final closure. I set your pages as if the lid,
remembering how the family said the make-up the funeral home
applied was too much, she never wore it in life, polished fingers
too stark, thrown open. But I know how she drew gowns, rich brocades
in blue and green silk, twirled her mansion dreams
within that sullen room. Salted words down.
I look up from the final entry, no closure,
as at the window a butterfly preens,
lifts, leaves the garden beyond.