She leans, 

hip juts in clay skirts, 

a cloth cast, wrapped. Glazed domestication. 

 

Her waist pinched in naked air, 

goosebumps smoothed by artist hands 

and oven heat.

Hair pleated. Braided permanence. 

 

And her eyes cast down, 

and she always remembers her 

Missing. 

 

Phantom elbows bend,

shadow fingers mingle at the torso. 

Raise lilies for her motion, in memory. 

 

Her reminiscing, an apparition. 

Her imaginings, a coy thing. 

Envision what was, 

her fantasies. Haunt her. 

 

Stone dreams 

of fingers twitching, 

arthritic pain, 

palms pricked by lily stems

and sharp leaves, gripping.