Although there are strangers around

Although there are strangers around
                             (for Anna Williams)



I pull a dog hair from between the weave of her sweater.
That they cover her,
grey scarf to grey boots,
is a sign of love, I say to myself,
a telling mark of comfort, of needing but
not getting.
In between is a landscape scabbed over
by expectations unmet. Torn
down the center by the absence
of arms.

Her face bubbles watery-red as she lies herself beside me,
  for once  allowing me to hold her.

And what I feel
is her immensity;
none of it escapes with her tears,
like mine does.
She is a carving of Redwood
though, for now, she is folded in.