Challenging Poetry

the strongest memory

when I saw her,
wan and strong in black,
all I could say was,
“I can't remember
ever seeing him
without a smile,”

and she blinked and nodded,
a pale echo of a smile
on her face, “they got that
wrong,” she said. “that's
why he looks off, but I'm
not sure how they would
do it so he looked right--
pins maybe?”

and neither of us looked
at the blue shining coffin
covered with blue and white
flowers until the air was filled
with the stink of them,
and the face that looked too still,

focusing on the memory
of a smile we would never
see again.

April 21—Salient image (poem based on one concrete thing you remember at day’s end)