Remember

Stepping from the shower, swathing your soft folds in the towel warm from the rack, she’s there in the tiny pinkness of feet through the steam, toes wiggling, head bowed over her apple belly and her own yellow towel never wrapped; always hooked cape-like by the hood on the damp head, little bear ears perked and no idea yet what nakedness is, not weighted with the care of it, and when you go before the mirror—in the second before you look—you believe with all the tired songbird in your chest there’ll be no reflection, then laugh at yourself: you never feared being undead, but the first blink shows you smooth, dark brows and unclouded eyes, and the silence becomes everything; the hunting silence like the moment before the killing strike of an owl when something—not you—already knows you will soon die, and it’s not until the second blink shows you colourless hair and deep lines around faded lips that held breath can whistle free between teeth the colour of silver birch bark—happy birthday, Dear—in the bedroom she lays out your history while you shrug into your cardigan; jeans with shredded knees and shit-kicker boots, and that time you wore nothing but dungarees: layers and layers of clothes like the shed leaves of a tree, and on the terrace, there again, she lies in your lifetime of summer sun, straw hat shading her shade of your face, while you walk among wildflowers she planted with slender, clever fingers for these your fading, golden years, and breathe the air, and remember they are the ghosts, not you, not yet.