Everything had been swept away
in the divorce, right down to the teaspoons.
Drawers halved in weight,
and hands found empty spaces
where silver should have been.
Her friends gathered up the pieces gently,
as though she might still
cut herself on them.
They walked with her by the sea,
where broken shells
collected in the tide
like small pale knuckles.
And along the outskirts of the forest,
where the trees bent willingly
to the west coast wind.
She always listened to them,
the long groan of branches,
the salt-heavy air moving inland,
but still it wasn’t enough.
Her friends deserved extravagant things:
green stones cold from riverbeds
and velvet boxes that clicked shut softly.
Not the discarded homes of hermits,
not sea-glass and driftwood,
not the small surviving mementoes
she kept dropping into their hands.
But even so, she offered what she could:
a tulip grown over six months,
watched from the kitchen window.
And when the flower finally opened,
her friends touched the petals carefully.
They placed it in water by the sink
where the evening light could reach it.
Days later, she returned
and found it still there,
leaning toward the window,
water freshly changed,
beside chipped blue mugs.
