Death of Someone Else

                             If you should ask her name,

                             I would have to answer, from
                             high above the stars, that a terrible wind
                             has taken her, alive.  She has departed
                             with only her father’s name, flowing now
                             on a river of scars and breathing.  She is
                             newly partnered with fluid silence and
                             has left her old voice on the low dog’s floor
                             to shed unwanted fur which clings like love
                             to everything she wears.  She writes
                             occasionally.  We can find her words flocking
                             around inner beauty and tragedies which
                             chuckle vaguely and peck for buried seeds
                             like masked November chickadees furled
                             against her cold new cold.  She lives on
                             the corner near a church’s bells, unsure of
                             herself—except for the sound of her
                             own noisy gong.  She has unfeeling
                             hands that no longer feel for me.  Her luscious
                             warm soup fingers are fresh but now cold.   
                             First snow and pictures litter the ground,
                             not everywhere, but everywhere enough
                             to know how cold it is without her.