Little Elegy

by Susie Meserve

I think of you like ball – peen hammers, tapping
a hall of mirrors.
Like the foghorn on a clear day.

(Is death abrupt, like wind seizing a house?
In that box — so close I thought to leap up in my skirt and hat
and pull off the lid — it didn’t seem so.
She just rolled off without a hitch.)

I have murdered you, darling.
Now I shake snow off the bulbs,
say prayers for the earthquakes,
for the oboes and flutes and jazz trombones,
for the prayers, for the pray – ers,
for your ghosts.  They are all around the house.
Trust you to have more than one.