Perhaps the mystery

centers on Edwin Drood -

where's his missing body,

who did the fatal deed?

But I'm drawn instead

to you at eighteen, poised

motionless, unfinished.

Am I entering your history

because you signal me,

more than a century between us?

Again, I'm off chasing

sameness in what differs.

Your childhood losses:

two dim parents who waver,

disappear into darkness.

An instinct for dream

flutters like a moth beneath

your pretty face. You posing

as everybody's darling.

My century allows

its own disguises. Behind

my smile, a starling pecks.

Rosa, grief is a language

we both babbled

before we learned to read.

Both of us so capable.

You, at Twinkletons' school -

charming, petted, indulged.

Me, the brightest girl the Home

took in for years. Such camouflages!

Now terror smothers

my imagination.

How to write you forward?

Let's assume your intuition

spreads a safety net

below you. Alert to lust,

you choose a worthy trapeze

partner. I did. What other dangers

threaten? Say a single cell

corrodes your sturdy body

and poisons.

So small a shift you hardly

sense it. Gathering your skirts,

stepping from room to garden

you smile, plan for tomorrow,

cut dahlias for your table.

Rosa, stay eighteen!

Never bed your child

into earth or tend a husband

on his mattress grave. Rosa, remain.

Source: Prairie Schooner, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Winter 1989), pp. 100-101