For the Suicides

Izumi is sending a stream of characters into the night.
As she types, she dreams she is a fine-cracked cup
from which, imperceptibly, tea is leaking;
or jetsam in the tide marks of a raked garden; or in
her bath, where last week she rinsed her new green hair
and the extra color surged down the drain like blood.
Some lines shiver through the narrow streets: Hiroko.
By the time Izumi's monitor shrinks to a small eye,

it's settled: the place, the time, he has the pills. And
how she'll know him (by his red, high shoes), and
he her (the hair). Oh you not born to the computer age,
there are powers you've not yet fathomed. Pass by
your children's rooms when they think you're sleeping.
See what gleams, as if off water, underneath their doors.

Copyright © 2004 Lola Haskins All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission