You had so much promise.
You wanted to bloom
like the gardenia behind Billie’s ear.

And you did for a time,
torching through a world of pianos
and smoky haze,

always for a coterie,
never a crowd.
Now the last promise has been broken.

Pieces waft out your window –
traffic noise and neon
bleed back in.

Mingus is on the stereo –
“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”
Your note is on the table.

You stand at the sill and think:
“While the City Sleeps”?
This city never sleeps.

It just gets darker, less alert.
I want to be part of this city again.
I want to bloom once more.

And you do, weightlessly,
arms outstretched, futile wings.
Your white clothes billow like roses

through sixteen stories of air.
Lights streak past your eyes,
colored tears.

And in the end,
you blossom in red,
a flower returned to the ground.



[In memory of Susanna McCorkle]

09/21/2001

Posted on 09/21/2001
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt