Saturday, November 10, 2012

For Anne, Who Knew, But Sang Anyway










                                                                                      Inspired by Anne Sexton





You aligned your inked soldiers 
gray with cavernous yawns gleaming bright,
black anthems marking their despondent trail.

With shreds of evidence, scrawled ransom notes,
just how much proof of life did we require beyond
the gripped grinding of your bones, the harsh tremolo
of your caustic voice before we finally realized
how far you'd fallen, how deep you'd descended
into those aching crevasses carved by chaos?

How much brutality must one mortal frame 
be subjected to, endure, before the structure gives way,
crumbling into severe shards of glass, 
misted clumps of dust?

You screeched and scrawled 
until ears turned deaf, eyes blind,
neglecting the density of your sorrow 
until you could bear no more beatings of your breast - 
you stilled yourself so gently, the slight rippling of torn wings 
could not be heard.

We wept for this grave loss, unkempt 
and fevered with contagion such madness leaves behind,
a wake we could not consciously attend without shattering
our own brittle reflections in antiqued mirrors 
we'd so long ignored, snared as we were 
by a placid existence.





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