Even though it’s a time of danger maybe we are about to be free. ~ Gloria Steinem

And now I see her in a box,
the girl I was back then.

I stand beside the glass cocoon
where the body’s stretched out

inside, run my hands along
its cold crystal ceiling. Auroras

in the mind light up, color bleeds
across this sky’s membered flesh.

There is no lid or seam to pry
my fingers through. The corpse

won’t be tampered with. What’s
done is, and where do you go

from here? Glance back. Snap
a pic like any good museum rat,

note the still life made
of her features, the constellating

gaze of dead lips and eyes. You’ve
dressed her in her best baptismal

whites, wads of lilies, pink-pearled
ribbons orbit her,

a horseshoe yoke
the winning beast and rider wear.

Birthed blooms circle her skull,
the gaping sex of them

sewn to a crown embalmed
in time. Signaling the end

of a very long race, years
of struggle and what you

fought for erased. At what
you thought was the finish line.

"Victorian Funeral Notice (Glass Coffin)" a poem by Michelle Bitting

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Photo used under CC.