Imaginary Kittens

When she was a child
she played with imaginary kittens.
She'd bring them to show you
in carefully cupped palms-
such a beautiful child.

Rosy Dawn, my mother called her,
always had the light in her,
like sun lifting gold
amid pink drifts of cloud
above the shining sea.

She married a silent man-
never uses two words
when one will do.

I remember him when he was a boy
she says. We went to school together
and I've known him all my life.

He'd take my hand to help me up a hill,
and whispered to me when my knickers
accidentally flashed from beneath
a too-short, hand-me-down skirt.

I fell in love, she said.
I don't think many people
get that in their lives.

As she watches him rise
and leave the group of people
laughing and talking round the table,
wander off down the garden alone,

she holds the sun off the horizon
in the final moments of pansy-eyed dusk
with all the tenacity of a mother
for her last scratchy kitten.