Remembering Charlotte Poem by Alicia C. Cooper

Remembering Charlotte



Today she would have been forty-three
If her sun had not set at thirteen
She would probably be a wife and a mother
Spend her summers in a cottage on the beach

I bet she would have learned at a university
Ivy League - that seems her style
She was always smart with a touch of highfalutin
A bright mind to match an equally bright smile

Would we have fought over clothes and shoes
or space in the room that we shared
I often wonder how life would have been
If Charlotte had only been there

So I take my what-ifs to bed with me
hold them close; they are all that I have
Our time was too short, our memories too few
So my 'maybes' take the place of the past

And I look for her now in the eyes of my children
Mother took her when she closed her own in death
And Father's laugh held her faint impression
She came to life when rare chortles fled his chest

So I have little things nothing warm or living
to keep her alive and breathing
Lost three on the day that Charlotte went away
One to Heaven; the other two to grieving

And I wish I had seen the danger in the midst
Paid attention; seen signs if they were shown
Would my words have held any weight, anyway
At eight, were they much too weak to hold

I wonder if things would have been much different
Had thirteen chapters not locked me inside
Her most treasured book that she insisted I read
Had ultimately kept me alive

For her footsteps were not calling me to follow
as they did every other summer day
As I sprawled on the rug reading Toni's Bluest Eye
Charlotte bounded out the back screen door to play

Then a stranger's hands plucked her from our mother's garden
A strangers hands were her very last touch
Did she fight, did she scream; none of us heard a thing
Was she chosen or was she stolen just because

And decades later the question still remains
Why did death choose Charlotte over me
She was so damned golden; so full of good things
Maybe that's what brought her killer to his knees


Today, on her day I put the questions away
And I promise to move on to what was
I did not have her for a very long time
but I certainly had her long enough to love

So I look at my reflection in this gleaming glass
And I'm surprised by the smile that is forming
Because staring back at me is Charlotte's memory

Simply her

No more wouldas, what-ifs or mourning

Saturday, August 23, 2014
Topic(s) of this poem: Grief
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