I did not know of you—
Your older sister was cold
And did not speak to children.
And the circumstances of your death
Were hushed both then
And now.

But I found you (or you found me),
And though the pathetic details
Were sketchy at best,
I felt, I saw, I knew
That Truth that lingers
Beyond the grave.

Life was hard:
Your Swiss mother widowed,
Fatherless poverty,
Young domestic help.
But what “despondency”
Prescribed for you “carbolic acid”?

And when I visited that neighborhood,
20th Street, the bluff above the river,
I felt only Place
(I’d hoped to feel you lingering).
And where was Uncle Gwylim?
Lost in his own emigration?

Effortlessly, I found your
Markerless rectangle of grass
Well-way from the family,
Always alone?
And your cherub-faced bridegroom?
--Remarried and moved to Idaho.

12/26/2018

Author's Note: A great-great aunt's suicide

Posted on 12/26/2018
Copyright © 2023 Leonard M Hawkes