When did the garden with its banked flowers start to smell like a funeral chapel, and the mild breeze passing our foreheads to feel like the back of a nurse's hand testing for fever? We used to be immortal in our ignorance, sending our kites up for the lightning, swimming in unknown waters at night and naked. Death was a kind of safety net to catch us if we fell too far. Remember Elaine standing in April, a child on one hip for ballast, her head distracted with poems? The magician waved and bowed, showed us his empty sleeves and she was gone | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RED TURTLENECK by KAREN SWENSON THE DEATH OF GRANT by AMBROSE BIERCE THE BALLAD OF CHRISTMAS by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE AFAR IN THE DESERT by THOMAS PRINGLE SONNET: 54 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE ELIOT by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |