After

After you’d gone
and I had cleared away
litter of clothes and papers from your wake,
when I had beaten the bounds of our space
and made it mine

then in those unregarded times
after the cup of tea, before the washing up,
came daydreams –

your hand in my hair, that unbirthday surprise,
quibbling at Monopoly or Scrabble,
choosing a mirror together, picking garden plums,
loitering in the porch to taste the evening sun,
hand-holding at a concert, duets all the way home,
chasing each other up the stairs.

Every now and then, they would catch me out,
the things we never did.

Jennie Osborne