Death is Taking a Holiday
and Sorrow is Jumping the Gun
by Michelle Davidson Argyle
During hospitals, sleepless Sorrow abandons her room.
She laces her shoes and fills the tank
before heading south to blue bays
hungry with sharks and ships floating to Tahiti or Spain—
anywhere further than this coast.
When Sorrow strips down, she bares more than naked skin;
she eats cactus for breakfast and bleeds her tongue on the thorns.
To see her in the desert with flowers on her lips:
she can bloom like tears:
vials of blood and sterile sheets.
She will not whisper pain among this sand—
That is left for tight windows over squares of cut grass
and a lot paved with the emergency of red and white.
[Michelle writes, "This is a poem that received publication and a special award last semester at UVSC. I don't personally see why it's that great, but a lot of people really like it."]