Before the council truck, scavengers
will come, pick over, then roar off.
Surely someone will take her nude
self study (it took her a year to do),
hang it in yellowed silence on a
weekender wall. She never said much.
When she did, he rarely understood.

This time tomorrow it will all be gone.
Only some cigarette butts under leaves
will stay. He'll move on, not wait to see
what's left carried away — an old Coke
can (the kid's), the new folder she left
in her studio, the frayed blue jacket
they'd borrow mutely from each other.