Here a cigarette dangles between her thin fingers;
she sleeps through conversation and ash.
Here she closes her eyes and the sea stops moving.

And here she is a boneyard of unspoken words,
salt in the quiet throat of her marriage.
Here she is the green whiff of childhood.

Here she is sparrowed at the edge of the earth,
exiled in her dying skin.  Here, like sorrow,
she is liquid in the bones.

And here is the day she will be gone, her eyes resting
no longer upon the tulips, their white
petals, like teeth, fall to the ground.

Here she is hair, and nail, and noise in the brain.
And here, dear body, be still.  Time is the only lover
that will touch her now.