Ophelia

Ever since you were
in that play with flowers
growing from your hair
and one of them,
the white one, fell
from your coffin
to the blacktop
and the rain came over it like boots
and the boots came over it like rain...

What a death
they wrote for you! The human flower
crying yourself down the stream
You couldn't sing but boy could you cry!
I’ve never seen anybody
cry so much, not even
in real life
It cracked our hearts
for a while but got annoying
and soon we disowned our feelings
like old bread.

I loved the way your dresses fell
I still hear your song
and every flower you cast down
(
they’re just props but they mean to me
what he said they mean)
You untangled death and blew new breath
in her lungs,
joining the others
who've put bodies over that soul,
new flowers on the Bard’s old tree

By the end the stage was a churchyard
and we yawned and clapped
walking with the dead
as a tree is itself
upside down
roots in the air     
                          branches in the ground

I left the night into the opposite stars
thinking what a life death may be!