The roof leaks golden brown dust,
like the sugar deadly for your diabetes.
Clean laundry is still piled on your bed.
The wardrobe shows your ageing seasons:
from flares and minis, to long pleated skirts
and silk petticoats folded neatly on the shelves.
Your bottom is indented in the cushion
of your favourite chair. A faded palm cross
hangs on the living-room wall;
tiles detach from the verandah floor;
downstairs the wood column rots.
Seven Septembers since you died,
yet no one will give the house
its last rite, and so it remains,
woodworm gnawing the roof;
everything fixed for your resurrection.