For Ashley

   Sorrow departs sweetly in the worst scenes of good opera:

   Huge breasts bound tightly by slag-made cross-your-heart design

   or deceptive concrete cups, ruching, and Empire's feign of draping flag,

   chubby hands clamped to a pale quarter-inch of forehead's foundational

   stage slather;  Spandex back-supported baritone bellies twirl twirl twirl 

   and fall, arms approximating Golgotha, pointy goatee

   in pretty pointy goatee profile.

An aria ensues, eyes glint -- dab dab dab --

and postures suddenly improve.  Posture improves. 

Our theater now plays the halls of Maryland's Walter Reed

where Ashley is one of God's ones:

Top billing, Playbill's pop-eye yellow cover,

where Ashley is exceptionally exceptional.  

When blood pools and she rots,

it's angel wings that sassy girl achieves, not damp, weepy, 

slinky clots of stringy-tissued necrosis;

She's all apotheosis 

and no part pure stink.  

But her breasts are huge and healthy:  It's a family trait.

As her limbs absorb themselves, melting wax preserving

every touch like amber, every thumb print,

the incongruous grows and parts the sorrow

of this busty wasting woman child.

She was meant to die on cue, or perhaps not,

it depends,

as so much does, so much does.  

It depends

on whether Ashley's dying proves operatic

or is cast upon the more prosaic 

planks of unsung trodden drama.  

It depends

on the prompter

for each, as one will throw a lyric voice 

for her sweet ears alone,

and one will hiss and mouth

some line of gasps and sighs,

gutteral utterances.

She each will mock, anyway, with metered overplay --

spout some nasty limerick, jump up and spew

a bloody softshoe,

though in consideration

of her brother and sister actors, her pale arms

and long fingers will cast sand about the stage,

not just so we may hear with acuity

the slide and slides of her mottled soft-soled shoes,

but to soak up the dark dripping red, for when not

congealed, it's a potential hazard, and when

it does clot, the sensation is much

like stepping on a slug.

The prognosis, say the necromancers, will defy

and defile Ashley's breasts while they still swell

and enthrall, still catch a man's eyes, still cause

her male doctors to be glad of long, white coats,

and her female doctors to curse the curse of blushing.  

On cue, all admire the pearl crucifix tucked, twisted,

buried deep in teenage cleavage, between wires,

monitor pads and an embedded port,

wherein all the chemo goes 

and slows, kills and kills,

as indiscriminate as her Lord.

She's old enough, now, to be moved to the adult ward,

(every casted Annie grows up, too, the curls and voice

become insipid, the hair too brazen bronze)

but Ashley was raised, really, on pediatrics,

a child actress, a lisping prima donna,

one of the rare altos to earn deference

as a leukemic red-haired baby, though she has grown

into a pure soprano, the pure soprano

     of a whisper that flies

          whole,

               

that waivers and trembles tremolo

     vocal glory, 

          as heads bend closer, longing to hear,

     

enthralled by a death scene,

the real abstracted, a gilt poem, the spot lit

gift of many a booming brava!

-- and the self-indulgent, tendon-stretching 

screech for more and more, encore! 

-- an athletic, death-defying feat

of lung, tongue, and larynx,

of lip, heart, and soul.

Other heads rear backward, rear away, 

having heard this song before,

differently, having seen the struggle

to perform, smiling and dying, day

after day, way upon way, drip

by drip,

this woman child's performance

sometimes slipping, sometimes allowing

for fears, tears, and memory --

her worst nights closing in febrile hope

of tomorrow.  

Other heads have heard

the song of her ragged breath as she slept

in sweat, while her good parents fiercely prayed.

Other heads smiled at henna tattoos: 

olive blues and orangy seafoam, a grinning

skull, tiny flies, a cross and paisley socks,

elegant peacock elbow-long gloving.

Swift grins at real piercings, despite the risk,

gotten rapidly, suddenly, as impulsively fast

as the sexy photographs and flashes of flesh,

the cover shots for Ashley's billing as

"the beautiful, believing girl who dies too young."

The usual opera written strangely for one,

a theatrical venue in the semi-round,

where Ashley is one of God's

ones, singing her way out --

belting her way out --

in raspy heartbeats,

dreaming of singing

in New York, more Broadway

than Met. Really, if only she could live to know

it, really, Ashley wants an amphitheater,

loving, smiling, nodding heads

looking down, eyes calling soft,

encouraging, eyes calling soft,

pledging troth.

Call it an avatar or be averse

and call it just some photograph,

Ashley's image designed and plotted,

deviously planned to make me love her. 

I saw her picture first

and instantly vowed,

immediately pledged my troth.

"O, teach me how 

I should forget to think!"

Troth being an archaic term,

my vow does not bind but my bow

does bend, and deeply, as I aim brutally

sharp arrows from this ancient site, tall columned

where I perch, and shoot straight

down at Ashley's heart,

pale blue veins between 

breasts fallen apart

as she writhes on her back,

slashing her febrile skull

right left right right left.

Twang and thud.

Twang and thud.

Fun whore hair she chose for color

for life's last stage:  a flirty orange

plait in rasta raffia, that flew so

fast and far from side-to-side

they beat a staccato that fell apart,

a steady beat become dying

chaos, chaotic beeps,

fluorescent green waves

traced black on buzzing paper.

For lips. Ashley selected

a dissonant voice, a rich

and ripe bright pink,

traced somehow red

and smeared

on pillow cases.

O, teach me how I should forget to think! -- Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1

PHOTO CREDIT: PhiladelphiaPhotos