She loves his slender hand,
through midnight-ebony
and notices the fullness of his tones,
unswallowed before now, doctored,
a tonic to the faintest light.

These are his A1 years
memories built into dozing colours,
each one a mood, a row,
a sullen face at breakfast.
And in the bowls: gunmetal-slate,
smoky red-ink
developing to yellow-rouge.

Always backward-looking glances.

She reinvents a last dusk,
when her love clogged-up his eye,
remembers relics,
invigorations of the studio light, slushes.

And still there are these light-quake greens
chasing away the sallowed dreams
paring  from mullberry, or black.