orgotten Memories

Strapped to a gurney, the pleas kept coming:
anguished apologies, claims of innocence,
pitiful prayers for forgiveness and grace.

Two needles had released their justice,
triggered a cough, a gasp, a rattle,
pushing air out in a sharp, punctured sigh.

Doretta watched with dutiful purpose,
a witness again to all that sadness,
all that waste of lives spent kicking shadows.

Rarely anger, only a single sob
emerged from the awaiting recumbents.
It was the relatives who yelled and kicked,
at the glass, at the walls, at their trauma.

Doretta knew there were no winners,
only the wanton damage of revenge.
And she sensed the comfort of victimhood
offered only shallow consolation.

The ghosts would still swirl their constant presence.

Outside, the town lived: a neat little place,
where locals were polite and went to church.
Inside, at home, Doretta increasingly
dissolved into tears - her suitcase closed,
shoved into a corner to hide the numbness.

But her mask had begun to slip its fixture,
sliding to the safety of love's envelope.
A birth's emergence had thrust issues
further than previous pale boundaries
of confinement and callow certainty.
 
"You don't see many flowers on the graves here,"
whispered Doretta to the wind's fresh breath,
as she drifted amongst the unmarked graves.
 
It had been sometime since the lid opened,
and memories were difficult to catch.
Wet tissues gusted the cemetery grass,
and Doretta left past deeds for others.