John Hawkhead
Traces
First realisation dawned,
oddly enough, at dusk
when I lost track of her retreating footsteps
on the sands to a dwindling horizon.
The beach house was deserted
with curtains flailing from careless, open windows
and a mercurial splash of intruder lights
automatically flooding my approach.
Too late for a door slam in my face,
I stepped onto chequerboard floor tiles
where a tilted saucepan lid had long finished
its cymballed spiral into silence.
An extractor fan clattered dry air,
as her remaining scent
had wafted out on tendrils of steam
to trail her like the merest gauze tissue.
Immaculate sheets lay taut across the mattress
with that dip in the middle finally ironed out
and somewhere, down an empty corridor of echoes,
a telephone began to ring in the changes.
Page(s) 80
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