for Barbara Franklin If I die tonight And they ask what my last words were Tell them I still was true To all the first vows we made Tell them I kept the words I spoke amidst the ding of others' many lies Tell them too; a tenuous twenty thousand miles Or a flimsy four thousand days Could never be a blurring block To the clear perception of those first idols We sculpted in the desk-shop of Junior Block Tell them, will you, The sacred moment remained intact And I was, to the last, a priest of love Observing all the rituals of callow seed-words And too, let them know, I carry the burden of our-heart-stringed-song Across the ethereal essences of other realms And wherever I find space, Your name is the flag I erect.
Euphemism Campus Box 5555 Illinois State University Normal, IL 61790