Poem: To Bury the Life from Before

To Bury the Life from Before

By Christine Stoddard
QuailBellMagazine.com

The soil on her grave took two years to dry
because the storms would not cease.
The clouds could not blink back their tears;
and their misery blackened the sky.

When I try picturing her face—every crease--
I tremble before one of my greatest fears:
she has faded into another city phantom.

Who can make her out in the noir?
Who remembers her before one car
rendered her the tragedy of the annum?

A ghost giggles in the dark;
a bat flutters through the park;
the trees bend, their palettes stark.

I want to see the obituary in the flesh.
No newsprint, no words, not even a letter.
Just a smile or a sigh, however fleeting,
from the girl who dreamt of meeting
a fate of bylines
would be better than staring at
this photograph
a thousand times.

But I must start another day afresh 
to the silence of her heart beat,
to her absence from headlines.

They have forgotten.