April Palmer

Mamma, I saw a flower,
O sitting on our sink,
Reflected against the marble,
Just begging for a drink.

And, Mamma, it was so pretty,
O sitting on our sink,
Bathing in its yellow bloom,
As though I was the sun!

Myself and me keep company
Only twice a week
With the shadows of Loneliness
Between the pages of my books.

And once a week, I drink tea
With the pretty chrysanthemums of Sorrow
Who takes her tea bitter

Lies as thick and black as ink

With painted over rhetoric

That I saw

When broken ceilings of glass

To blue sky of truth

Subsided

Truth of sky blue

To glass of ceilings broken

When saw I that

One day I was led to gate gleaming,
And a robed man met me there,
And he saw my eyes - O but he did not See!
He wore pale round goggles that would not See.

I did not want to enter that lovely gate,

Your Funeral

After Emily Dickinson

I saw the Funeral, in Your Eyes,
And felt it cold, in my Soul.
After you died - I mourned you -
For your artful mind was now coal.

After you died to me -

Before his knocking hand reached my door,
Frightening the hungry fox,
Till coroner put sun to bed,
How still my eyes.

As though, goodbye moon,
Why day begins!
Why day begins?
Even though no sleep came.