by Nick Gisburne
Corrosion, creases, fractures of the hand,
The cracks of age, the damage done by time,
Are signals, signs, she cannot understand.
What happened to the woman in her prime?
She never felt the jump from that to this.
A stealthy, slow erosion scored her skin,
A thousand changes any eye could miss.
Who saw it, saw the subtle shift begin?
She wears a stranger’s body, not her own.
The folds, the furrows, looser, limper. How?
In each forgotten photo she is shown,
She recognises nothing of the now.
She mourns the face on which her life is drawn,
The lines, the details, deeper every dawn.
