Five Elegies

Elegy 1: the mother
gone.          (looking at palm) the hand feels empty.
madman. flashing: gray, black, white.
a little girl in bathing suit, squirting
water from the hose at the camera.
gone.          why not some other mother’s baby?          
         she wonders: will the body ache
for the loss of love like the ache after birth for the loss
of the newborn?
the hand feels empty
for the loss of a child to hold.


Elegy 2: the father
He must be strong
not to cry.  His wife needs his strength.
As he walks into a world of satin lining, he thinks of her
prom.  The satin and lace gown had flown around her like flocks
of dappled canaries.  Yellow is her favorite color.
This satin shall shroud her. He winces.
The sky’s gray light tumbles through the windows, and settles in the room offering spectral solace.  He listens to his hollow foot falls
on the hard wood floor.  Decides this cannot
be the place where his daughter will receive her last gift.
He rests his hands on a wood rail for support and thinks:
         Fathers should not have to put their little girls in pretty boxes.

Elegy 3: the younger sister
a dress is not worth
         so much as this.
the fight should not have happened.
cotton and stitch.  But it’s mine after all,
I am not to blame.          I didn’t tell her to go.
she had plenty to wear.  So what if it matched
her gray sweater.  I should have gone
like she asked.  I should not
have been selfish.  Seamless, I unravel.

Elegy 4: the boyfriend
He stares at her picture:  golden
highlights, in the hammock, breathing
next to him. she was so wonderful to touch.
her last breath is a question to him: her thoughts, prayers.
What did he do to her before she died? How much
did she suffer?  he digs his nails into his gray sheets, wondering:
where was I to stop him?

her hot breath on his neck. smell: vanilla    taste: mint
hot.  Inside.  He burns for her now
         as always, not
                   quite the same.

Elegy 5: the victim
bound by blood
red ribbons
that had held her hair, a cloak
of black engulfs her head —
blinding her eyes, stifling her pleas as she awaits
the next touch
         of his cold blade. She feels
                   her gossamer flesh, naked
and the congealing wounds, a cold quilt
covering her flesh, but reels, location, orientation unknown

as his labored
breath and sharp teeth scream
across her, she drifts
to her childhood

at seventeen she imagines
         she will survive