If.
Yesterday,
while the rest of the village went to the memorial service
held annually at the old Cree grave site,
with its little, coloured picket fences marking the spot of the dead,
a girl,
eight years of age,
was found strangled,
entangled by the neck
in a twisted pair of leotards
hung up to dry in her room
because it had still not stopped raining,
because she wanted to wear them for the first day of school tomorrow,
because it was scary to feel you are choking to death,
but are not, not really.
They say that if, when they found her
dangling by the neck
in the stockings she would never wear again,
by her younger sister who screamed,
and screamed,
'til the others came running,
back from the service of the dead;
that if, when she tried to get her sister down,
she had not used up precious time
unravelling the twist by spinning the hung girl
round and round(no, the other way!)
and round
as she choked; that if, when they found her,
they had just cut the nylons down,
quickly, now,
to get the weight of her small body
free of her throat, then
she might have lived long enough to get back her breath.
May her soul rest in peace, Amen.
The shadows loom long in the morning sun.
As the body lay there
on the couch,
in the bedroom of her parents,
the village elders gathered around to help.
"Change all the furniture around," an old man said to all.
"Wash down all the walls,
wash all the furniture,
wash everything in the place where this happened."
So they washed down the room
which still bore her scent,
washed every place that still held a lingering imprint
of a girl's small hand
upon the places and things so recently, so carelessly,
touched
and held
and breathed upon.
I light a solitary candle this night.