Remembering Charlotte Today she would have been forty-three If her sun had not set at thirteen She would probably be a wife and a mother Spend her summers in a cottage on the beach I bet she would have learned at a university Ivy league-that seems her style She was always smart with a touch of highfalutin A bright mind to match an equally bright smile Would we have fought over clothes and shoes or space in the room that we shared I often wonder how life would have been If Charlotte had only been there So I take my what-ifs to bed with me hold them close; they are all that I have Our time was too short our memories too few So I wonder takes the place of the past And I look for her now in the eyes of my children Mother took her when she closed her own in death And fathers laugh held her faint impression She came to life when rare chortles fled his chest So I have little things nothing warm or living to keep her alive and breathing I lost three on the day that Charlotte went away One to Heaven; the other two to grieving And I wish I had seen the danger in the midst Paid attention seen signs if they were shown Would my words have held any weight anyway At eight, were they much to weak to hold I wonder if things would have been much different Had thirteen chapters not locked me inside Her most treasured book That she insisted I read Had ultimately kept me alive For her footsteps were not calling me to follow as they did every other summer day As I sprawled on the rug reading Tonis Bluest Eye Charlotte bounded out the back screen door to play Then a strangers hands plucked her from our mothers garden A strangers hands were her very last touch Did she fight did she scream None of us heard a thing Was she chosen Or was she stolen just because And decades later the questions still remain Why did death did choose Charlotte over me She was so damned golden so full of good things Maybe thats what brought her killer to his knees Today, on her day I put the questions away And I promise to move on to what was I did not have her for a very long time but I certainly had her long enough to love So I look at my reflection in this gleaming glass And Im surprised by the smile that is forming Because staring back at me is Charlottes memory Simply her No wouldas what-ifs or mourning
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 04:38:17 +0000
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