« And we were silent again, until she spoke. »
—— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.
He saw her the other day, from a distance,
Talking too much, smiling so hard,
Wearing a new greyish woollen coat.
(Yes, he noticed)
He also saw her fingers miss the door-handle of her car.
He smiled.
It’s not for him to say (of course), but
Her exultation (thus staged)
Contains an element of
Remorse that holds her back on the verge of plain truth —
The one she spoke before, as when
She told him about the white flight
Of stairs that troubled her dreams — which made him shudder
And which still makes her cry,
At the end of the week,
Behind the white curtain of her shower.
