After Deborah Finding



Before we start we do each other’s hair. Her hands are deft,

weaving my greys taut in its new middle parting, my head 
full of unapologetic spinstery wires, hers autumn copperish.

I’ve brought us some tea. Charlotte goes through my targets 
one by one, writes down some thoughts in her tiny notebook,

writing desk on her knee. Then, she waits for me to begin –
It’s been a difficult year.  I falter, not knowing how she will fit

my thoughts unto her inch of paper. I then realise she is drawing
a sketch of my profile (I have lent her a biro with four different

colours and she likes clicking between them). She gestures
to my double glazing, whirring desktop, radiator and asks:

what is it makes your job so difficult? (She must wonder how 
I can’t reach beyond when I have this light, ink and heat).

Grief.   I feel I can speak to her, trying to show this cobwebby 
feeling.   Desire.   We agree neither are Specific Measurable

Achievable Realistic or Timebound. Survival has been a main 
objective.    I didn’t write that one down anywhere   I confess

or the one about keeping my treacherous heart from wandering 

onto the moors at night, burning the house down, talking with ghosts –