Tin box Cathy Fowley

Tin box

(Those are pearls that were his eyes)

In the rusting tin box the silky silt of memories flows through my fingers. The ghost of a red dress, a dressing-gown, a trench-coat a dark-blue blouse torn at the collar. These two smooth ones – his one and only suit will be dark eyes, white thread through four pinholes for unseeing star-marked pupils, like the pennies that women set on closed eyes under the shrouds.

Cathy Fowley