In the uncertain mist
behind the hospice,
a woman peers at me
through the beautiful flowers.
They bow before her,
in a maze of blue and red.
The edges of her hair glisten,
Escher patterned crystals dance
in her spectral eyes.
The undead clutch her skirts,
grim reminders of where she was
and what she did that day,
what she does for love
or lack of it.
Blood streaks her cheeks,
those dark eyes never lie.
Caring for the elderly,
assisting many a faltering soul
to a merciful end.
But sometimes one resists.
Her lips on their mouth,
she stills their protests.
She smiles at me and turns away,
slipping through her flowery door
into the cold tomorrow.
Marge Simon’s works appear in publications such as Strange Horizons, DailySF Magazine, Pedestal, Dreams & Nightmares. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side,” and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, 2010, and the SFPA’s Dwarf Stars Award, 2012. In addition to her poetry, she has published two prose collections: Christina’s World, Sam’s Dot Publications, 2008 and Like Birds in the Rain, Sam’s Dot, 2007. She has won three Bram Stoker Awards ® for Superior Work in Poetry. Her poems appear in Qualia Nous (Written Backwards), The Dark Phantastique (Jasunni Productions) and more poems will appear in a HWA/ Simon & Schuster Y/A collection, 2015. www.margesimon.com
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