The Tombstone Told When She Died

The tombstone told when she died. Her two surnames stopped me still. A virgin married at rest. She married in this pouring place, That I struck one day by luck, Before I heard in my mother's side Or saw in the looking-glass shell The rain through her cold heart speak And the sun killed in her face. More the thick stone cannot tell. Before she lay on a stranger's bed With a hand plunged through her hair, Or that rainy tongue beat back Through the devilish years and innocent deaths To the room of a secret child, Among men later I heard it said She cried her white-dressed limbs were bare And her red lips were kissed black, She wept in her pain and made mouths, Talked and tore though her eyes smiled. I who saw in a hurried film Death and this mad heroine Meet once on a mortal wall Heard her speak through the chipped beak Of the stone bird guarding her: I died before bedtime came But my womb was bellowing And I felt with my bare fall A blazing red harsh head tear up And the dear floods of his hair.