Flowers stand out beneath fingertips,
threadbare petals snagged & stripped,
component strings rendered distinct--
How long has it been like this?
I recall it only as blue, robin's egg
pale, warm in the afternoon sun, soft
as it needed to be, but now
I feel how the wood cuts in
beneath the cushion, sunken
into comfortable conformity.
When did it become something else,
something other, all this texture,
all these years? I feel your hands
when I close my eyes, your fingers
separating only to rejoin, to make
new patterns from unchanged habits.
And I understand now why the ground
has been so loose beneath me:
fresh shoots pushing up where
nothing has grown for so long.