CC Bloom Poet Free verse

You are my granite soul

You are my Granite Soul

Elizabeth! 

You are the queen
of my golden age

you were younger
than me, my now 39,
before you gave up
on womanhood ,
children,
and romantic love

long hair is only
long for long

and entertainment,
plays, comedy
and music
can only start
and end

( requiem means
“mass for the repose
of the dead,”
after all)

I never was
at my sister’s funeral
nor part of her
requiem
or celebration. 

She still laughs
with me
at bad jokes
(in my mind)

and her laugh
was groundbreaking
and life-affirming!

I remember
the quills,
the copycats,
the dirty streets,
the tangibility
of too many mistakes

of white-lead beauty
and trying humor
of timeless history
and strong women
with or without
curtains of fabric
and heavy,
corseted fashion
and those looser
and tight-bound
socialites
who had more or less
fun, unstrung

your ladies in waiting
may cry, but you
will not

My hair is oily
after three days
of teaching and
no shower,
and I don’t like
mirrors
on Mondays
when I am not
made of hard stuff,
stone, or granite

“wearing the face
that she keeps
in the jar
by the door”

I am not
Elenor Rigby

To be married,
unflinchingly,
to England
outlives emotion
like the granite
of Mount Rushmore

(the requiem
cries your name,
as would Mozart,
a less durable artist
whom it hurts to
hear, sometimes)

whose work
poured out
faster than blood,
and it killed him. 

“I have become
a virgin” Cate
Blanchett
confesses after
shearing her head
of hair. 

The puritans were shorn
unwillingly and blood
stained the blood
rinsed in water.

They went
from water
to coughing fire

to be worshipped
as the Virgin Mary was

one must become
more than woman,
more than man,
immovably
inhuman

Elizabeth,
let lesser
women
respond as men
think women do.

You are
my granite soul.

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