20150709 (bearing a cross)

The young woman in the red dress

Who sang torch songs at the spring

Med school blowout was incredibly good

For a brief hour and a half everyone

Fell in love with her

Word was she was ill in a way no one 

Could tell how she’d gotten this far

Or how much longer she had

I wonder today twenty years later

Whether she’s still alive and whether

She gave up medicine for show biz

And an adjustable schedule

You don’t have to be at the top 

To make it as a singer

There are so many places to appear

You can perform less often but regularly 

In seasonal haunts lesser venues

Where the owners take an interest

In you as their family who know

Sometimes you can’t make it in June

But we’ll see you when you’re ready

To go back on the road

Or did she find some niche in research

At a good university where they recognized

Her talent and accommodated her difficulty

Which is hard to believe knowing how badly

They can beat you up in a competitive lab

Maybe she made it into actual practice

She’d be in a group of course where others

Could take on her clients

When she couldn’t be there 

If she ever declared a specialty

I didn’t know so it’s easy to imagine 

Her greeting kids men women old folks

She had irredeemable classic good looks

True blonde blue eyes a figure to die or kill for

Did she marry ever try to have kids

Or decided against risking everything

Only to widow a lover orphan a child

What isn’t likely is that it all went away

And she’s doing just fine

Wherever she is summer home at the cape

Pied a terre in Manhattan 

A modest Georgian in Virginia with horses

No it’s likelier that her hair started thinning

She put on weight grew grotesque

One day collapsed on the stage 

At the lab in her office while teaching

And was hospitalized beneath a tent 

With a plethora of tubes sensors monitors

Until she was moved into hospice

Lost consciousness died

We all know we’ll die

We admit it quite casually

But it’s something quite different

When you’re beautiful gifted and young

And they give you a train ticket

And you’re told any day soon

A cab will come

To take you to the station



c. J.S. Manista, 2015