Dear Marilyn,

I heard the storming ululation
in this photograph we reach for
to remember your life by,
soft hearted, still seething
unprunable in today’s cyprus
flame, that still fencing shutter
turned from Lebanon’s skyward
village streets, another farewell
dance of rice and roses.

I’ve never seen a photograph
like this, snapped by a friend
walking the prisoned flower line
your courage heart so bare
so generous even mums
burst from masqueraded
feeling, each glance a reminder
to resist relegation as object
for tomorrow’s campaign.

No, we do not mourn you
of loss but in prayer that we
may carry on your steel spirit
uncaptured even by the mumstealing
corrosion of your jailers’ sarcoma.

— Vanessa Huang
vanessahuang.com