Late Period

The house, once you have gone,
enters its own

late period.
The noted drapery

those bowls, gravid
with dour, umbrated plums

the eye-shadow
of chiaroscuro slurs

ceding to rain,
the poppy-saddened fields.

Beneath, sienna,
umber underfoot

the tried-on colours
on the unmade bed

and in the hall,
the lilies lie unread.