Saturday, June 19, 2010

Endings

Madame Ellie Mae Williams Davis began a tiny little poem

Six pounds three ounces of song

Eyes of shallow waters

And pale simpering flesh

All others fell in her father’s eyes

At seventeen her stanzas broke hearts

Brought grown men to weep

Stopped Studebakers on Main Street


She drained malteds and Cherry Coke

And dreamed of a watercolor tomorrow

At twenty three she combined with another work

Two verses together

Forming a couplet

From them sprung little inspirations


At ninety two she is slender and willowy and white

She pants with tongue dry and cracked

Back arching into me

Spongy lungs engorged

She no longer leans towards tomorrow

She falls back to the past


I watch her climax in front of me

She screams like a baby

“No no no no” horrible “no”

While she recapturing her youth

I will violate her death


I open her gates

Insert the tube to feed her breath

I pierce her with needles and pipes

When her poem ends


Endings are the most difficult part of any work

A return to the dominant chord

As the last echoes of her melody fade away

I write

“Time of death, 3:15 am”

-e2k.7

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