When did the garden with its banked flowers start to smell like a funeral chapel, and the mild breeze passing our foreheads to feel like the back of a nurse's hand testing for fever? We used to be immortal in our ignorance, sending our kites up for the lightning, swimming in unknown waters at night and naked. Death was a kind of safety net to catch us if we fell too far. Remember Elaine standing in April, a child on one hip for ballast, her head distracted with poems? The magician waved and bowed, showed us his empty sleeves and she was gone | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE INEVITABLE by SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON A WOMAN'S ANSWER by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1882 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 12. LIFE FOR LOVE by PHILIP AYRES FATHERHOOD by CHARLOTTE LOUISE BERTLESEN THE PEACE OF COLLEGE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |