The Ebbing

She was beginning to mislay our names
And also where she came from, who she was—
Her childhood inside house and orchard walls,
The fruit as warm as sunshine on her palm:
The words that should have held the world fell back.

Yet in her gestures, there was mystery
And something luminous that tried to say
She was herself despite all fallings-off,
And in her room that day at autumn’s end,
A glimmering of girlhood touched her face.

Some claimed she gazed at forms we could not see.
Some said she lightened as she left the room.