Her days were too long, nights
even longer, as she turned in his
empty space, felt the damp pillow
on her pale cheek.
She had put all the photographs
away, wrapped in newspaper,
in envelopes, deep in drawers,
she put them in a tin, hid them
in the attic.
She couldn’t have him smiling
down from shaded walls, sat
shrouded in an old grey cardigan,
in the quiet violence of her afternoon.
