In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

What I meant to say is this: You’ll write more poems. They are not lost. You are the poetry.

I stood on the most God-forsaken patch of earth I hope ever exists and I thought: I wonder how Elly is.

In the hypermasculine atmosphere of war, they were not overly concerned with manliness.

Ellwood smiled, and a sudden, dry bleakness spread over Gaunt’s heart as he thought of Hercules, and Hector, and all the heroes in myth who found happiness briefly, only for it not to be the end of the story.

My dearest, darling Sidney, There was nothing else. Only dead white paper, blank and meaningless. A comma, followed by nothing. Death summed up by grammar.

Sometimes Ellwood went to the window and watched women ride by on bicycles. Isn’t that nice, he thought, wishing them crashes and miscarriages.

Ellwood had to turn away, because it was painful to look at something so lovely without knowing if he would be allowed to keep it.

“Yes, it’s an abomination,” he said, lightly, although he knew it wasn’t. Knew it couldn’t be. It was the cleanest, purest part of him.

Dear Henry, I’m not playing, either. Yours, always, Sidney