You are laying out our winter clothes,
Folding them, replacing them on wooden shelves
Sweet with the smell of soap and jars of pot-pourri,
A different colour, a different essence
For sweaters, shirts, blouses, underwear.
This is not a task I am allowed to do.
I turn from writing to watch you work
And wonder if I might catch your scent.

Outside is everything you hate;
A brawl, fumes rising as neighbours roast a pig,
Beyond them clouds sharp-edged as splintered timber
Signalling a storm when you will hide your head,
And beyond that perhaps your unlaundered past,
A cousin, boy next door, classmate, the argument
You never wed who might have blemished you
With those resentments in which discolour lives almost
Imperceptibly until the stain is permanent.
You remain serene and cold to this as winter,
Your landscapes immaculate as linen.

Inside is everything you do not hate.
I am your rough weather, your dirty blanket
Laid on the earth between the stalks of maize,
Your blazing row. I have caught your scent.
Outside the pig crackles on a spit while pure colours,
Browns, reds and lilacs, lift tumblers of sour wine.