Mother touches me and I turn, I should not have turned away; I turn and gently close her eyelids.

Beneath the cover of my duvet, under the rose, the petals fall slowly above a fluttering nose. A street bathed in blue, I see a woman, her cheeks red and her lips too.

At night we sat waiting for father to come home; I have known love, tumbling, loves supernal womb of never-ending oranges- I fold beneath the weight of a heavy tongue; the son of my father, my mother the sun.

I sit and listen to the sermon longing to touch the curls of her hair. I hear the voices fall. I follow her whistling, ‘The two twins born;’ turn the vase over and watch all the stars falling.