Poem 7

Her face was always a tight sneer,
Sometimes a painful scrawl
He took her home, and waited for the promised smile
That never came despite, the shape her mouth took
A suggestion that if she smiled.
It would be sunrise. She never smiled

But she laughed, one time when, the child jumped and fell in a heap
Across the fence
A loud,
Crazed noise that echoed to the valley
Where he was bent cutting grass for the child’s rabbit hatch

And when she died,
She took long
Dry, wordlessly, she laid
Finally ,at the public hospital downtown she lay rigid
And when he looked at her face,
The smile,
The overdue smile
‘Let me take her home’, he said
He laid her body on their couch, and called the camera man.

He’d have tried to save then
Wake her
Presence the new beauty resurrect

Beautiful in death she was,
Still
Serene eyes shut
.Still,with a smile
A smile of she that would eventually smile
He framed the picture