Farewell Peggy
(In Memory of A Memory)
Shock never comes gently. It electrifies
& tingles every hair on one’s body.
Without warning—your unexpected passing
was a seismic shift burying the long ago past.
Although you transitioned in October
when pumpkin faces & ghosts decorated
front doors of houses, it’s taken weeks
for the loss to process in my baffled brain.
Today is St. Stephen’s Day, the first
Christian martyr, brutally stoned to death
by an angry mob. My mind metaphorically
stoned—peering at the wilting poinsettias
& wrapping papers from yesterday’s
Christmas. A holiday disturbed, painted
with the color of death—in the middle
of manufactured joy. Pretending to engage
with the light of the newborn Christ
during this feast of yearly gift giving—
a hollowness shrouds the tinseled tree
recalling your Irish face under stage spotlights
glowing as a real-life Blanche Dubois—
graciously smiling, bowing for one last
curtain call, phantasmagorically
transforming into dazzling dramatic energy.