A Magazine of Many Arts

Adele Gardner

You bend, my angel, pensive, over graves.
He loved me--loved us both in different lives.
You have her hair, he said.  His eyes sought yours,
Hoping your eyes would follow--not blind stone.
You saw him.  Cameras caught you, quite alone,
The two of you, communion--in one frame--
Translucent arms to soften vicious blame.
You coexist on paper--muted muse,
Scarred poet--grafted through enlarger’s views
Into one entity, four arms, one heart
That speaks to one who's stood too long apart.
 
Your stone bouquet droops over a bronze vase--
A home now to dry dirt and spider lace.
Close in the breast of hollow ribs below
Lie crumpled poems written long ago
For her, then bundled up for me to save
Like gifts whose worth might shield him from your grave--
Despite the fact that he had left us both--
Cast off, trod under, then chalked up to growth--
So much for lover's promise, marriage oath.
How could I know that stone had pierced him through,
That sorrow made him restless with the truth:
That we'd have all too long to mourn, atone,
But you'd have just one day to live in stone,
Turned inward, trapped, and dropping out of sight,
Your footprint sinking deep in graveyard blight,
Your sadness given voice by downward gaze
That pierces where he lies--too soon--three friends
Now caught beyond the power of my lens.
 
Our hearts are full of stone.  And when I'm dead
I’ll know just where to lay my spinning head--
I’ll feel you stretching up into the sky,
Your eyes--my eyes--alike too sad to dry.
Your roses in my arms. 
                                                My billowing hair,
Cast loose, like yours floats out upon the air.