Why She Died [rev] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Steam is rising, the locomotive in my head
driving this old mill in which my every word
is formed & said, spools and prayer wheels
turning in the loft of my cranium are in

Overdrive already - I can feel Death quietly
watching as I writhe & turn in the torments
of hell; observe the sentence - just look at
this, meaning’s terrible, phrasing’s raw, it’s

Killing me, destroyed by a legal document,
from now on only a zombie troll is left from
this erstwhile golem whose holy words in
the head were deleted by MAD, INSANE

French Legislation, and from high up in the
sky the blind god Lo and the crocodile god
Offler watched me die; sorry - I got carried
away - sadly for me I won’t die, but I’m in

La Traviata’s Violetta-dying-scene mode -
sure, I feel worse than she ever did, that’s
UNLESS she also read French law - it’d
explain why she died in stops and starts

Just as I’m doing now…