Among The Gladiolas
I have decided your death was the occasion of casseroles
(minus your smile) full of questions . . .
A twenty-one gun salute (minus your Harley and guitar)
Boyhood dreams dissolved (plus future endeavors)
A Marine, muscular body, cold and stiff. Your casket, hair so
soft, (plus the long line of unknown soldiers, passing through)
weaving through my fingers. (I never brushed your hair while
you were alive) Once you were the King of the Mountain, though
you “cheated” (I, minus an awareness of the line of force - your leverage)
Plus, the fact, this might be the last memory of a Paris scene,
where I dreamed, you - among the gladiolas, red and yellow,
were wearing your imaginary beret of green.
I wonder, even now, of what beauty you might have painted,
the songs that may have lived long and well, and of all
the poems that lovers might have whispered, signed
and sighed, with your name.
Deborah Russell, 05-31-06 (Snapshot)
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