The Black Dahlia

by Jared Carter

Hurry, please hurry along, Elizabeth,
it is not far to go, not far at all,
until you find the place to make the call.
A bit disheveled, slightly out of breath,
you wait. No hurry now. Each petal’s fall
is soundless in the dark. And of your death,
what will they make of that? No no, not yet,
the tabloids scream, the ragged newsboys call.
We do not know . . . we cannot know, we dream
a while – a night, a year or two – and then
we dream no more. There is, in that dread shape
they found you in, an irony supreme –
incomprehensibility, first when
we see, next when we turn away, agape.

© 2006 by Jared Carter