This Woman to The Dark Angels
This Woman to The Dark Angels
The woman who last lived in my house
receives postcards from the institutions,
advising her what to buy and what to wear
now that the dead are lost in our computers.
What will make her bone shiny smooth,
her teeth white as the day they left behind.
Notices for art events in museum mirrors,
orchestras she no longer needs to listen to.
I hold piles of these notices in my hands.
No one to tell anymore that her name is Gone.
No way to tell the salesmen that she won’t buy
under any conditions anymore.
Why don’t her pension or social security checks
come in among the slicker stuff. I could use it.
But somehow the government seems to know,
not care but know…this beast that spies on
small gray ladies wandering deserted streets
without ever saying anything that it finds,
leaving each institution to do its own thing
and sell to the dark angels whatever it can sell.
Jared Smith is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, including his new book, To The Dark Angels (New York Quarterly Books). His poems, essays, and literary commentary have appeared in hundreds of publications. He is a Board Member of The New York Quarterly Literary Foundation and is Poetry Editor of Turtle Island Quarterly. He has also served on the Editorial Boards of The New York Quarterly; Home Planet News; The Pedestal; and Trail & Timberline. He lives in the foothills of The Rockies.