No Fitting Title For Mortality Poem by Jenn Kovel

When will my picture
Cease to be
Me?

With everything I'd ever
Hoped or dreamed etched in mystery
Eyes that I alone can translate

Where children's children
Only see the smiling face of
Grandmother, and
I
Am
Gone.

Generations before me, have
They too wondered?
Who can understand this Time,
Place, Love, like I?
And when and where have
All the memories gone when
We are not here to view them plain
As the giggle bursting from
Our matted glossy lips?

Must we,
Must I,
Reach the sad and
Transient conclusion
Of mortality?

There is no memory here
To be shared, passed on
A happy face is all
That I can hope to leave behind

And when my moments are no
Longer moments but frozen bits
Of time, and memories
Naught but stolen glimpses of the past,

I will since have passed