She wraps the silk around her limbs;

tight silver tendrils, to touch as peeling lily skins.

The thought of  it would last forever –

over the rip, the fall,

 it would.

 

The pleating whispers, lavender skirt and hush,

 blue dipped fingertips rush.

The hurting,

spinning sphere of youth - 

it would last forever.

 

Folding, rolling,

the two otters blush,

a plait of play, a rippled halo

kiss,

her arching foot, tender, twists -

it would last forever.

 

Holding her in his lift,

declaring the sun,

the gaping years of silhouettes

behind the gift,

of a threaded dance between the lips;

it would last forever.

 

On a bed

where she retires, fourteen,

and memory in those limbs, now seen,

now taut, now older

and watching, sidelined, keen -

a stage so,

she had thought things beautiful,

would last forever.