Lamentations (A Haunting)

  When I put on my gown
to shed my grief in linen
that softest hands once smoothed
and folded, in this wide
    and desolate bed
  I fly from eiderdown

  to rows of hills that lie
under the vault of stars
among the scent of flowers
that blossomed far away,
    where few find rest,
  and few go willingly.

  She waits, my slender love.
I dare to stroke a cheek
as bloodless as old lace,
proffer a touch she fends
    and steal a kiss
  she now is chary of.

  Beneath her tattered dress
a fluttering has stopped:
a still bird with still wings;
and yet she moves and breathes,
    and static tears
  shine on her tintless face.

  Why am I taken with
the hands that smell of earth,
the absence in the breast?
When far winds in her voice
    moan, when I hear
  the winter in her breath?