Elegy for Anne

Although we are
deux femmes suprêmes
from random decades
I know that you
and I are alike
my sororal twin

(Even though,
as you know
I, like Hamlet
lack the courage
to be a coward)

Nonetheless
I too
have two moons
which eclipse me
with such a sweet, sweet
lunacy

Each bipole tugs
tugs with its
own grave gravitation
towards either
cirrus heights or
unsounded depths –
for you know too well
one cannot savor either
without its other
     
But I do have to ask
since we are now sisters
Are you truly a sexton
in more than just name?

Can you then toll for me
a sanctus bell?

Thrice should suffice
I do think

Once to clear the bats,
once to clear the air,
once to clear my head

For I too dread
this time of the year
desolate November,

desolate November
with its plucked, naked forest
gray and barren
as I am now

Perhaps
when you are
finished
with all that infernal pealing
could you be a peach
and go and fetch
a requiem shovel?

Then exhume gently what is worthy
and inverted, re-inter
what is not