Death of a Gay Madamoiselle

(Note: it is rare that I make drastic changes to anything I write, but a friend made some suggestions about changing my poem DEATH OF MADAMOISELLE duPONT, and I agree with her. Here is the change, I believe it makes a much stronger poem...and very timely." DEATH OF A GAY MADAMOISELLE Dear Stella, there's your path, into the park, deep shadows hide the trees along the Seine, the quiet of the night accents the dark and you can feel your breathing now and then. The peaceful gloom, enveloped by a mist, all black and gray and shades of morbid white, accentuates the place your eyes have missed, where someone waits, who's watched you every night. This place, where gendarmes warn to be aware, tonight is more foreboding than you've known, and so you pause; you look; is someone there? it's then you realize, you are alone. The snapping of your heels you hear increase, as if the hurry puts your mind at peace. Engulfed, the path leads up and from the Seine, and then you'll be out of this narrow pit, but suddenly you feel the eyes again, much closer than a glove too small to fit. You struggle with your thinking, in a word, to flee or just pretend no one is there, and so you hum a tune you've never heard, and place your safety in your mother's prayer. Oh, Stella, Stella, in the spring you'll wed, your sweet Marie, believe she's at your side, and you will laugh at all this gloom and dread... though courage might have found you, it has lied. The shadows all are moving; you can hear the breathing of someone who's all too near. The quiet; crickets sounding no alarm, but now a drizzle rain cools at your heat, and tingles flowing down onto your arm remind you of the friends you'll never meet; quite suddenly, she's grabbed you from behind, and muffles any sound you might have found, you cannot scream, to hurt is in your mind, but she's too quick, she's pinned you to the ground. Who is this thing, your lover or your friend, you might have pained...why does she want you dead? or is this just someone who brings the end, you've never known, with killing in her head? You feel no teardrops, feel no blood nor fright, there's only pain, then blinding, blinding light.... © 2003 ron wilson aka veebdosa