Down the westward path

where the willow grass shifts

in a minor wind, the woman

herself an echo of the former,

now eager to be gone, out

of the crumbled house and the nights

of ruined music with the crooked half shutter

and the moss-whipped barrel of rainwater,

the hurry of her lugging a bag

with questionable seams.

She’s left the cold tea and crumbs

and whatever is crammed in the back

cupboard, she’s left her velvet shoes

worn once and her books, she’s left

him who’s sleeping now forever

in the damp bed, the red rough scar

on his chin. Away she is, with intent

and a few coins and no one the wiser

perhaps for weeks to come. She’s past

the lake into the crisp shadows.

She’ll walk as far as she can and further

into a somewhere else she’s longed for,

blank as the blackboard she’d washed

as a child, directed by the nuns

who told her lies.