My voice has closed as the winter’s drawn in,
snapped shut like a thorny oyster
dying in self-imposed asphyxiation.

Outside it’s brooding, always dour
with sombre drab and dreary murk.
December mists bring biting frosts –
salvation for me is not coming.

The bedroom’s gloom is orange shot
by the street light bent double outside
and within these ruinous bleak four walls
heavy with the black dog panting I see

the only thing left from you to me:
a shot of lime green ribbon
that you tied to my suitcase
on the day that I left to come home.

It lies, supine, still wound round the handle,
slinky with the secret of your fingerprints
like a record showing that you used to care.
Sort of; in your own indecipherable way.

The only thing left is a strand of lime green
connecting the dots; a line from me to you.
There’s been no call, no message to say:
you’ve been thinking, you’re sorry,
you understand what you did.

I know I should hold it and pull full apart
its stubborn and cold-hearted knot.
Should throw it away,
like I threw everything else all away;
there’s nothing of use there no more.

It will spew micas of dust when I shake it,
when I come to untie its cruel core.
And I know there’ll be chills when I hold in my palm
the prints of your fingers, invisible traces
that held me so dearly, once more.