I saw her again, yesterday.
She was thinner, and her lovely eyes were crumpled like violets.
I think she wanted to cry, but I'm not sure.
.
Her hands were clasped. She walked from one end of the rose garden
To the other, still and small and glass-clear. So quiet her blossom bud mouth, so achingly silent her small white teeth
Which, they say, used to burst through with sweet laugh and laugh.
They are in hiding now.
.
Sometimes she takes the roses and
As if in a daze, twists them into the copper plaits through her hair – thorns, too, though the ruby drip-drips through her long fingers.
.
She was a maid in the tower, her hands filled
With flowers, plump-pucker-full, Jessamine bloom and orange lily.
And her sleep was so golden it was red blazing
And so silver it was white
And one hundred years is a long, long time.
.
She's mad, they say.
I think she is just very sad
And remembering.