Stillborn

The soft sky, pregnant with clouds
Begging to split through the atmosphere,
Silently frozen, morbid and porcelain
Is something that will always remind me

Of her. The blood on the stark tile
Like rubies slumbering in the snow, sorrow
Lingering in the room like perfume,
And the soft sky, pregnant with clouds

Are memories I drag behind me
Like a corpse. The tick-tock mock of the clock’s
Morose minutes and your victimized voice were both
Begging to split through the atmosphere.

Clipboards and lab coats crowd the margins
Of my mind. Your quivering lips, earthquake hands,
and hollow shuddering irises contrasted her stillness—
Silently frozen, morbid and porcelain.

The priest’s words, the syllables that swam
Around the funeral without aim, your faith, battered,
Shaking at your feet, and her chiseled marble name
Is something that will always remind me.