Elegy for Michelle Beginning with One of Her Last Lines
        So let's walk the ruins, let's walk along the ocean
        and listen to death's undying devotion.
        —Michelle Boisseau, 1955-2017

I've listened to death's undying devotion
too long now, Michelle, written elegies,
as if poetry were life in slow motion,
could fool death, the goal of theologies.
I’m the fool taking our decade for granted.
Down the road in KC is a shared meal,
our leaning close for warmth, political rants, and
wry wit. Your eyes. Sad sweet eyes. I could feel
your despair—winter yearly dims the light.
How could I miss that you were deathly sick?
Why did I not hear the voice of your life
growing silent? Your tissues growing thick
with tumors? Friend, did cold take your last breath,
as undying skeletal trees attest?

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Copyright © 2020 Aliki Barnstone All rights reserved
from New Letters
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission