Shrouded Springtime Poem by Keith Gaboury

Shimmering silverware clanked
against the perfect plates
as an uneasy, upset silence
draped over the dinner table,
suffocating any beatitude left
into a purple-faced daze.
Heads down, mouths muted,
no words could describe what
we thought: why friends have to
die so senselessly like picking a
blood red Columbine flower from
its very root while newsmen beamed
the horror to so many watchful eyes-
clearing the table, scraping the food
from the plates into a soap-filled sink,
and trying to forget what we never could.