Sits at the window, waits the threatened steel
as any common housewife waits near dark
for groceries that should have come at four,
when it's too late to phone to hear they're certain,
to know the boy is pedalling up the hill
and not gone home. A boy who's late—
it could be simply that, so still her hands.
Two or three birds. Bare branches.
A thrush taps on the gravel, tilts its head.
Her eyes, she thinks, could hold it if she wanted,
could make it come up close, think this is home.
Sits there, her folded hands, her lips cold,
the expected blade already on her skin.
A piece of wind no bigger than a man
moves the dead leaves, bends the sopping grass.
A blind cord knocks the window like a drum.
'Perseus, stalwart, honest, comes his way,
his footstep nicks the corners of the day,
like something hard against a grey, chipped stone.'
The stone he says she makes with those grey eyes.
Jade in the dusk. Heavier than grey.
And when he comes, how talk moves like a mirror,
a polished shield, in shadows, then in light,
always his care to stay behind its hurt.
Talks of her greatest gift—to deck out men
in stone: stone heart, stone limbs, the lot.
Turns men to stone, turns them to herself.
'The only way to end, for both our good.'
And like a man who shows off coins or gems
he lets his words fal