Julianna Baggott

An Open Letter to Mrs. Lincoln  
 
I see ghosts of myself 
                        veiled remnants of former selves 
caught in whirls as if seen through moths
or bedsheets 
             through the delicate clockwork of age
the paling of this life -- the dust of children,
the lint of love in my pockets. 
                                           It's an omen
that we all know too well. Death, Mrs. Lincoln,
it's upon us. 
                It lurches in the molded kitchen.
It's caught in the lame dog's funnel. 
(Don't bite the sutures.)
It's restless in the meadow of our discontent.
(There are no more meadows. There is only
discontent.) I am wearing the tall hat of my
decay -- a fallen hat, so 
                              calicified, bent in two --
arthritic hat -- oh scoliosis -- how the back brace
didn't fix me then and nothing will fix me now.
For here, on display 
                 in the box seats, you and I sit --
Mrs. Lincoln, we were once wee pretty things that
grew squat with fever and madness and loss.
The shot will ring out. We will hear it before anyone
else because we know the chamber, the bullet. 
Omen after omen after omen. We collect them 
like snow globes. We shake them 
                                                  in our fists,
watch the snow grow paler, 
                                      paler and then paler still. 
 
 
 

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