A clothesline dandles

rows of vacant newborn

jumpsuits. The way I made

a life for you and you

fell away from it. 
Worn sheets ghost a whipped

branch, swing the wind

to haunt me, opening

folds of loss and hope. Only I

meet their flinching gaze. 
Two cotton tunics sigh,

ironed, airing. Two girls’

lives prepared by an unseen

woman. Fresh to press forward

into blood, into breeze.   
Airless drawers, closed

room stacked with stuff. Left

-over treasury, thrifted loot, boots

chunky and scuffed. A life walked

away. Its imprint stays. 
All this is emptied

of us, as we are emptied

of life. We are frayed, we are

threadbare, our hold light

on branch, bar and hand. 
Open to breeze and breath

and the end of breath. Open to hope

and blood, the swing and fall

of it all, to the end

of light’s flinching hope.