In the delivery room her baby-wide eyes
franchised the coming span,
the ordinary arc --
dress-up, birthday parties, headlong romance,
commonplace blend of glee & woe.
Began as fair commerce:
buyers of her emerging desires
met time-sellers --
brokers of days & hours
auctioned in a universal din.
She found lovers, husband,
pride of hard work
in those purchased years --
no less, no more grateful
than any other innocent.
So this vengeful lesson
taught at her expense,
of failed medicine, injustice without antidote --
(where knowledge fails art cannot succeed)
still astonishes.
For she had first trusted,
then hoped with steadfast grace,
only to leave us what she loved --
an opulent, unconsumed
coliseum of unspent days.
Exclamations of Jennifer, Jennifer
ring out more brightly now.
She took her darkest moments with her
in a bittersweet
cataclysm of enlightenment.
for Jennifer Matthews (1980-2009)