There is so little left

Rondeau Redoublé

There is so little left. The room is bare.
She’ll strip his sheets and blankets by and by —
only this morning he was sleeping there.
The light is pouring from a hard white sky.

She’ll write to him, perhaps he will reply?
He’s better off, she knows, God knows, elsewhere.
She’ll be all right, she told him cheerfully.
There is so little left. The room is bare.

His smell’s still hanging in the chilly air,
his motorcycle boots are propped awry,
helmet abandoned on the basket-chair.
She’ll strip his sheets and blankets by and by.

Make a fresh start. Do something useful. Try
to avoid that stunned and slightly foolish stare
the mirror offers her maternal eye.
Only this morning he was sleeping there.

He’s left a paperback face downwards where
he gave up reading and she lets it lie.
That’s not his footstep coming up the stair.
The light is pouring from a hard white sky.

She stacks up papers, pulls the covers high,
faces the glass now, plucks the odd grey hair,
flicks away cobwebs, dusts off a dead fly,
feels and tries not to feel her own despair.
There is so little left.

Dorothy Nimmo