Elegy

for Christine Severson (1968 – 2011)

It was all bold joke, you know:

the beads you wore like stars on string,

your discount glamour shot

of the hussy you were not.

You were a blast furnace inside,

hair like curling petals fried

in spring heat on the prairie, settling

next to some other side of pain.

Illness rode in your love’s pocket

among the keys, spare change, and lint.

It was a note, an inky wad

smeared, crushed by the hand of God.

You pulled it out, unrolled

and read it till your eyes gave out

and with the other hand you wrote

secret words, the antidote

for death, for taxes, and for sex.

We find them now among the weeds

your fresh and well marked grave indexes

sparkling like your beads.

You were the fireworks that shook

and branded the pages of our book.

Your sparks died in a field of hay.

It should have gone the other way:

We should be dead.  You should be old.

(Affairs with older men are bold

as long as they are first to go

not left like wordless winds to mourn

the passing of you, yet unborn.)