print versionDIANE SEUSS
Is there still a Betty in this new life?
Still a mortuary of roses, a canvas of starlings?
Still silken teabags filled with dead wasps?
My dreams are tri-level houses, a different brand of headache in every room.
I carried the garbage to the curb, placing my bare feet gingerly on black ice.
Is grief still as grand as the blue whale-sized embalming table?
Is love that ballroom hung with Monet’s water lilies where I succumbed to morning
sickness?
Is there space in the small town funeral parlor for a blue uterus the size of a boxcar?
I loved Billy, but only for his wooden leg.
I loved the mortician’s children for their access to the mortuary.
I loved the paper trees, but only for the moment sunset lit them on fire.
Is there still a Jesus language on the lips of talking birds?
Is there a Betty, speaking Italian if the language of the dead is Italian?
What holy trinity is dreaming the dreams I’m dreaming?
Is there a beautiful nostalgia like a breeze lifting the purple funeral parlor curtains?
Is there a Betty gathering the flotsam of the dynamited Buddhas of Afghanistan?
A Betty, reading the bones of my skull with her small hands? 
Is there still a Betty in this new life?
It Seems Like a Poem Should Smile Wide, with Rotten Teeth
We fear the undulant