RETROSPECTIVE

© 1996 Clinton Cyril Somerton

Your breezy garden hums
and smitten daisies ring your rippling dress
Your scissor blades flash boldly through
the careless blossom dreaming in your hand

You’re calling as you come
a whisper
growing
then a looming shout;
now you plough through the air and
kiss me
still breathing
your honey warm hair
like the sun
your arms overflow
daisies . . .

(I couldn’t tell
until the image shattered
and sprayed its jagged fragments through my mind,
until the petals
blew off
breathless and battered
and hit the broken world without a sign

I tried
to say something great
those times I could only
sing my heart out for you)

. . . and I weep
when you push them at me.