getting the summer clothes out of storage

You were still alive
            when I wore these last—
defiantly, on holiday although
            you couldn’t come, your stiffened lungs long past
exertion, in-flight air, the drive
on narrow roads wound high above
the turquoise sea. Not even love
           could get you there and so,
            reluctantly, you watched me go.

 I wash creased dresses,
            peg them out to dry.
Watching them flap in April air, I grieve
            your loneliness, your hurt-seized life: the whys,
the long, terrible distresses
you never could exhale, which left
you smaller than yourself, bereft.
            Spring asks me to believe
            that death can offer full reprieve.

Later, in the balm
            of evening, I take
the board and iron out, smoothing each crease
            from the worn, sun-bleached cloth. Nothing can make
them bright again—undo time’s harm—
but they’re soft now, and clean, and sing
the beauty song of tended things
            loved, lived-in; and released
            from winter’s clasp; and part of peace.