Dear Okla

by Renee Ashley

 

 

Monday morning early—not even
a hint of cloud moving in—I went
to the place we meet and you
were not there. Instead, a note
from David saying: During the night,

your great heart had broken and you
were dead. I imagined you sleeping,
then no longer asleep. It’s not right.
It can’t be right. The lilacs are shouting
their purple, the daffodils mocking

the sun. How can that be if you are
gone? Or, might they be oracles, after
all, who have beaten me to frantic dis-
belief? At lunch, my fortune is short
and spelled out in blue: You will live,

it said, a lifetime of love. It must have
been for you. The dogwood’s ripe
with bloom to praise you; the oxalis
has closed its eyes. I add my pitiful signs
to theirs. The world is extravagantly

diminished. The tulips, their long necks bent,
hang their heads in the devastating rain.

 

 

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