Sylvia (Poem)

Sylvia

The crawl space
held the curl
of her

concealed
in her own cellar
as her mother watched

"A Queen Is Crowned"
in Boston.
Two nights after

she'd gone
to sleep
they found her,

the forty pills not
enough, this
attempt of intent

denied her.
It would take more
life, more time

— and a gas-lit oven,
rags and towels
tucked below the door

and two mugs
of milk laid out
for the children —

for the pretty Smith girl
to get a way
to end her way.

By then
she was well-
known as his

American wife
Sylvia
also a writer

the two ids
defined but not
always connected.

Ted sent news
via telegram:
Sylvia died yesterday.

Just that:
a fact
the day of

and forever
after.

He re-visioned
the darkness
of her own

Ariel
riderless,
she hanging

on, line to line,
line after line
thrusting her i

into her black spring
binder, and nineteen
more poems
besides.

She might have
turned her last page
to bees and spring

and going on
living —
not concluding

her pre-dawn clarity
in air
trapped blue —

but to be
betrayed
in London in '63

was to be left
cold

and it was cold
enough,
the urge

she had,
and the time
to make it final.

© 2013 Maureen E. Doallas