small requiem

    

 

 

 

 

      Her white hair

 

Spring in three white crocus.
Arlene dies
Again.
A window appears on a wall
in my bedroom
Someone warns me,
There's a dead woman in there, sleeping.

  I crawl through,
kneel at the bed,
my heat face to face
against her cool,
and I beg her
not to come again,
dying every night
in my sleep of perpetual grief.

Morning, the window open,
Her breath on my cheek whispers
It's good, she says, everyone's here.
Was it Big Joe who died in the field? Was it Daddy?
Who died?

Like I was there.
Like she's talking from a dream.
From my sad childhood bed
I watched her window,
The light at her table,
The whirl of snow-white hair,

Shining lighthouse of my dark swim.


       Henry Real Bird  ( Crow Poet )












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