Lined up like make-believe guests, potted ferns
Adorned the entry, their cool shadows dim
Switching the parlor—life’s last living room—
Where time hesitates and dark furnishings
Project inarguable dignity.
Bookended by brass casket handles, lids
Too heavy to be raised again must sense
My presence, those defiant eyes I closed,
Who parsed my childish alibis, whose last
Wink nicked the priest, who forced death to hold still
Till her eyes sent light leaping into mine.
Make-up achieved the requisite life-like
Illusion, simulating deepest sleep.
Anxieties from cancer, agony,
Diminishment, decay, helplessness:
These were dissolved by death’s majestic wand.
No longer glued in sickbed amber, she
Exhales departure’s cloudburst, stretches free,
Ignores those funeral displays. I feel,
Inside pink satin, energy’s astir.
Longing embedded in the earth has been
Roused, charmed from sleep to welcome her. Except
Tomorrow’s pre-dug grave will not confine
Zest’s essence—just her perishable corpse.
Bright windows fogged. Or was that tears? She’s flown.
Native New Yorker and Elgin Award winner, LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of the British Fantasy Society, HWA, SFPA, and The Dramatists Guild—and a spooky Scorpio who loves Hallowe'en.
Current books: Messengers of the Macabre: Hallowe’en Poems, Vampire Ventures, Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems [Wild Ink, 2024], Apprenticed to the Night [UniVerse Press, 2024], and Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide [Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024].
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