Orange curtained

I.

Last night I thought of you, I couldn’t sleep - 

the bedclothes were too warm, too soft, their perfume

felt like the long-ago, orange-curtained room

where you’d sat with the sunlight on your sleeve.

The hoarding outside blinked into the night

some wire loose, some pattern of disconnect

patchy skin of an anecdote, near perfect

in recall, but I know that I’m being naïve.

Nothing much has changed meanwhile, there are three

black and white photos still on the bookcase

the walls kaleidoscope into your face

and grief does not leave any marks on these.

Peace is a hollow sound, darkness is an ear

twisted  in the pillow. And insomnia.

II.

I think of you during the day as well

your hands behind my eyes a push button

umbrella, their arcs of fluorescence open,

your voice a softly blooming magic spell

on a fractured day morphing to a lullaby

for a drop of time, neither blink nor aeon,

a swirl of seconds? years? before it’s gone

and I straighten up whatever went awry

turn back again, deep dive into the phone –  

respond to an email, write a paragraph,

read the news, look up the tally, adjust

my nerves, try a new pink smile - mostly half

hearted. Grief’s the shape of my collarbone

and wrist, milliseconds marooned in the past.