The Helmet-maker’s Wife (After a sculpture by Rodin)

She who was once his beautiful young wife

looks out at the flat northern sky,

the vertical rise of industrial smoke,

a broken scarecrow in a fallow field,

a solitary magpie on a tree stump,

the rusted creaking garden gate,

empty snail shells along the path,

a fine layer of dust along the window sill                       

and remembers a dress, in darkest red,

t…