darkness has laid out for me?
i had asked for a foretaste
of death's cloying sweetness,
its fervid, furious embrace,
its lip imprints like those
of a much-favored lover.
i had pleaded for space
on the crowded boat that glides
over the lake of sighs, to cross
over to a no-man's land with
palpable expectation, resistance
stilled, the wails of the bereft
drowned by the spitefully
laughing wind.
i wonder what wear, what clothes
the promised oblivion will oblige
me to put on--regulation black?
bright bridal white?
defiant tangerine?
i would not mind being decked out
in polka dots before heaps of clayey
soil fill out my eyes
my once ardent mouth,
before my nostrils play
host to a gaggle of worms
& the blessed downpour causes
the dimmed wattage of my smile
to fade
--Babeth Lolarga
published in another version in Mirror Weekly, Jan. 18, 1999
"Full Moon," in acrylic on black paper by Babeth
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