Jonbenet The Falling Star You Are Poem by Patti Masterman

She can't remember that last day.

Was it the cord wrapped tightly around her neck,
choking breath and thought? Memory can't be retained
in a brain starved of oxygen. Killer's face
stalking her, with florid concentration-
better to wipe it, like her thighs,
wet with bloodied water. What is being erased:
innocence, virginity, that last Christmas-
The secret Santa visit she was longing for.
This isn't it.

Grace and charm won't save her now,
it has become obvious, she is only child;
merely flesh, miniscule articulated human-
trying to fight some terrible monster
she can't even put a name to. Who knew
the evil in fairy tales really existed? Where
is the good fairy, the hovering angel, the savior
of all good little girls, who've done nothing wrong?
Didn't she say her nightly prayers-
for it must have been this, she was praying against?

Where is Mommy, Daddy; the house so huge and quiet now-
will they never wake? She tries to rise through the floors,
screaming at the sleepers, it's not her time.
But death is the mystery
too large, for her small frame to easily contain.
(With her thin arms raised obscenely overhead,
where frail hands can't scratch at cruel tethers)

The only goodness, that she will forget soon
who exactly she was, and also these strong hands,
that blow which broke her vital mind.
(Before this, all she had known of hands was kindness)

She never looked back again at the shattered window
Of soul; her eyes, where his staring reflection
Wavered forever just out of reach, like a falling star.