She came to them eyes open, dark diamonds of curiosity
starred and blinking, you could believe she was an infant
coveted by other beings, those menacing imps,
pouring darkness in her ear, she, a changeling
who somehow knew it, mournful in perpetual moonlight,
held in the violence of her white shadows.
She learned to keep her anger for the
imperfect, the failed, the hateful, a child
eminently suited to a strange and formal drill
She was a fine and complicated flight of reason
a prodigal richness of design, arabesque and sublime
She’d lose herself in dancing, crossing over
to some private dimension
an extraordinary piece of elegance
made out of intractable material
floating above herself, her mind filled with
elaborate and fanciful furnishings, her close and finial edges
fluttering and not touching
Each time coming down a little trickier
like tearing the house down and
having to rebuild herself in correct proportion
to contain herself, her energy capable of
running in so many directions
a sense that all her efforts would come to nothing,
that she fooled no one, especially the boy
in whom she saw a similar damage,
his darkness a current to feel at home in,
so together they ran off to California,
to speak Spanish and pick fruit, growing aggrieved
for their compadres, starving spectators at a lavish party,
a grievance mixed with their own misfortune until the drugs
ruined everything and the world blanked out.
She recovered with what effort, a wreck
of her former self, unsure of the rewards awaiting her,
donning a fierce and righteous anger, working
two octaves higher than her dull classmates and
the zombies around her in public defender’s court.
In another life she would have embraced the martyr’s beauty,
the blaze and glitter of a suffering crown
yet what I know about her is imagined:
one December day, when no one was looking,
she walked into the garage, her camarin or antechamber
her papers in order, letters sealed, she started the
engine, and turned on the gas
leaving behind her shell
Was she ensuring they would never forget her
a brilliant reverberation with each new ignition,
despite the reason and absolution of those letters
there would be no compromise, no comeback, final stamp,
stab at control, while spinning out of orbit
pricked on by the bad fairy, her wheel and curse:
you will sleep forever enthorned, unconsecrated
Did the violence and beauty seduce her
its bold exuberance
the final flourish of an enchanted, misshapen pearl.
