Magnolia

Little Miss Isabel,
I came upon you suddenly,
fresh from autopsy,
flowering with the fetid stink
of the parsimonious medical examiner.

Two moldering arcs of stitches
were embedded in your chest cavity,
twitching to sprout wings.
An embalmer sat sewing
the layer of skin and hair
back onto your tender scalp.
His foot tapped in rhythm
to the local country music station.

I was awestruck
by your singular beauty.
Five year-old magnolia
pinched of petals
in a cruel session of Love-Me-Not,
greasy-cold from moisturizer
to retain the dew of your coating.

I ached to cover
your goose-bumped flesh,
exposed and vulnerable as it was,
but knew I could not,
not yet. Bellies were rumbling,
time was oozing in upon itself.

Your frayed little panties
waited on the counter,
Hanes Her Way,
just like my own daughter dons.
Easter bunnies etched
in lolly blue and pink.

Later you were inserted
into the dismal party of the freezer,
one cold-cut refugee shelter with cots
and wrapped in plastic swaddling:

a restless corsage
impatient to resume
its sad merriment.