Self Portrait as Ophelia (Alive)

Emma Winsor Wood

Lusterless pebbles culled from
                                The sewing closet where she first divined
The fluting of a decade-dry riverbed
                                Your intentional unraveling
Crowd the ornamental pockets
                               Of reason
Of her voile nightgown,
                               (Fragile as netting, the mind
Its seams pulled close to ripping.
                               Tore at routine exposure to grief)
The collision between flesh & rock
                               Ever marks the misery of the mislaid.
From running in fits
                               She has turned into a corner now.
Across the frost-tipped lawn,
                                The daisy chain of days spent apart
Patterns her thighs yellow-blue.
                                Seals the vents in her skull, her heart.
Pansy, rosemary, rue—
                                Thoughts, remembrances, rue
Crushed pungent in dirt.