A Dream

Last night I dreamed that you still wait for me
To play with you as when I was a child
And your hair was the colour of rook feathers -
Silky, almost glittery, braided in two thick tails
Which I envied.

So I came to you silently, as in a dream:
I pulled the scarf from your head, slowly,
And saw there, two white, thinning braids
Coiled like snake-flaked skin, of which
I was afraid.

I thought I said sometimes it's for the best not to return
But didn't speak a word, for you were busy too
Studying the first signs around my eyes that numbered
The sixteen years.

We did not look at the photos we took when I left
...