Evelyn Mchale

This is an elegy for a famous suicide from New York in the 1940's whose glamorous death photo was in Life Magazine. - Chris Reilley EVELYN MCHALE You always were a shining star despite what you were always told Stay just the way you are, never ever let yourself grow old. Though your heart was truly scarred by what you thought they thought Your exit choice was just too hard to win the fight that you fought. And how am I to simply carry on? I am undone by your last faithless leap. No flowers in fields, no manicured lawn Your memorial is all that is left to keep. You held your beauty even in death your style was yet quite committed, And with your final mint-sweet breath your apologies you scarcely omitted. How I wish I had known how to hold your heart With the grace and the love it deserved For now we are fated to forever be apart as the track of your life’s ending swerved. Would that I could undo your last deed And walk with you under warm summer skies. If only I was able to answer the cold need that I still see in your death-dimmed eyes.