Departure Poem by MARINA GIPPS

On worn satin sheets of an old fading bed,
she waved at the clouds
as birds multiplied in her sleep.
In a tree, the memory of last April lingering,
a low limb edging towards the ground.
This is how love is-
the sky full of fleeing travellers
though never in flocks.

Her ashes, shells in a tin can.
She was so poor
that the cathedral keepers cast spells
on those waiting to wait longer
for her arrival in red shoes.
Her hair, an old tangled singe,
her skin, the palor of how they left her:
back alley amour, parlor queen of the charity funeral.

The fading of this day could never erase
this lone soul, a heart-shaped pendulum
waving over a forsaken river,
strange with red minerals-
How we inherited sin.