Endings

The Promise

Soon, the black and green tide—

lilacs laid across white marble,

first breath’s bloom,

and the last exhale's fading hues.

Soon, the tired and naked copses—

children of November asleep

in wood-lined cradles,

beneath plaques inscribed

with celebration’s cold grammar.

Their skin sings into dust.

Once mated to linen,

once the beloved

on a morgue’s quiet table,

now only the echo—

like a bell’s final toll

at dusk.

This is the promise:

hesitant,

half-whispered,

never rescinded.

Marni Fraser

0101.2010

Unknown photographer, The Ghost of Bernadette Soubirous, c. 1890. Multiple-exposure photograph.