A FINAL WORD

Clean, in a world of drabness,

The face of a girl I almost had

Cloys in my memories' heartbeat.

She brought, with her tentative passion,

The smell of an autumn day,

The grass of a new-mown sunburst;

The sway of a silent ferry

Moving the sea away.

She took, with her child's-sad leaving,

A heart, old from a weary search;

A heart, stunned by her echoing absence, deeply grieving.

one

-Allison Burton