Two Weeks After

He wears her around his pinky finger,
In an oxidized ring, turned green with rust--
Last piece he took before leaving her side
to walk past triptychs seen in deepest dreams
through bleak doors he will never reenter.

Beside me tonight, dapper in his suit
He’s wearing white on black on white again
His tie, slung like a fox tail round his neck
with hair disheveled like ashen rice straw

He fumbles his fork through a plate of peas
As if nothing is running through his mind
Though I know everything is on his mind

I’m afraid he’s receded like a bloom
That coils, and then closes into itself
Like the mums, once a golden centerpiece--
Their heads now hidden behind turning leaves
Collapsed brown bodies over table’s edge

I heap them, gently in to new water
Not ready to throw them away just yet.