Maiden Wake
My tomboy playmate,
whose name
I forgot many years ago,
Was imprisoned, like
in the game
We played—ringalevio.
I recall the
yellow shades were drawn,
Which sunlight
turned to stained glass—
Glowing like the world’s
first dawn,
Lighting the
parlor in a High Mass.
I remember little
if anything
Else of that, my maiden wake—
The open casket, the whispering,
The open casket, the whispering,
The eye contact I dared
not make,
And the thing that
overpowered
All else—her, pale and embowered.
Robert Forrey, 2012
