she stands, legs close
boots tall and laced and tight and gray.
her world is gray,
daguerreotype, skin brushed pink, lips a shadowy red.
her starched white dress and
grayed white sweater
tell of once upon a time beauty,
stilled into black and white and gray,
like when all the color went out of the world
and it had to be painted back in.

she leans against a gray wall
hands tucked behind her
feet tight on the floor.
she gazes left,
looking
elsewhere,
leery
of someone else’s dream.
what she sees tightens her jaw,
gauging the pressure of self control needed to survive there,

survive here.

a shadow shifts behind her,
the empty that remains of her time before,

(A monkey in a tree, a cat ready to pounce, tea with bears,
boots muddied until full and it is better to go barefoot,
piles and piles of clothes in the colors and textures of love:
rose lamé, chartreuse tulle, gold silk)

it reminds her that she vacated,
left a shadow yearning
for her body back.

An owl sits behind her,
bejeweled and silent,
in the forest of her knowing,
a few feet from her heart,
quietly radiating
the truth of her
being:

“no matter how hard you try”
she whispers without words,
“you can’t forget me.”