ext_65235 ([identity profile] aimlesswanderer.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] greatpoetry2009-09-19 09:44 am
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Michiko Nogami (1946-1982) -- Jack Gilbert








Michiko Nogami (1946-1982)
by Jack Gilbert

Is she more apparent because she is not
anymore forever? Is her whiteness more white
because she was the color of pale honey?
A smokestack making the sky more visible.
A dead woman filling the whole world. Michiko
said, "The roses you gave me kept me awake
with the sound of their petals falling."

-- from The Great Fires (poems 1982-1992).