I said I would buy the flowers myself—
Step into the morning, become someone else.
The day is a ribbon, the sky’s like a bell,
And the hours chime softly, though no one can tell.
I pass through the sunlight, all lilac and glass,
But I’m always becoming the girl I once was.
Who am I now, in this glitter of air?
The city forgets me—yet I’m still there.
Not quite the hostess, nor quite the wife—
Just a breath between moments, the shape of a life.
And the hours—they slip,
Like rain from the wrist.
Like parties and petals,
Like kisses half-missed.
Was I ever a self?
Was I only the light
That danced on the wall
Then vanished from sight?
There’s something in June that is just like a wound—
All beauty and sorrow, entangled, attuned.
Peter once loved me—his knife of a gaze—
But I chose the safe harbour, not passion’s blaze.
Yet even now, as the bell strikes the day,
I wonder what girl he saw walk away.
I gather my guests, I smile and I stir—
But who is this woman they take me for?
A thread through a drawing room, always composed,
Yet aching with silence where nothing is closed.
I think of the boy who jumped to the air,
Fell through the sun like a prayer unanswered.
Septimus, stranger—your shadow is mine,
Both of us slipping the ropes of time.
The soul is a secret, it does not grow old—
It burns and it flickers, it never is told.
And the hours—they pass,
But leave no trace.
I gather them all
In silence and grace.
The self is a mirror,
The self is a sound—
The toll of Big Ben
And the hush underground.
Robert Walker 