Propped upon a chaise so faint,
so pale with antique grief,
that even angels hesitate
to touch its fragile leaf.
Her lungs—two trembling reliquaries—
spill hymns in crimson lace;
each cough a Requiem aeternam
sung directly to her face.
A single camellia, winter-white,
drops softly from her hand;
the petals, kissed by fever’s blight,
obey death’s mute command.
Her satin nightgown—clinging, wan—
is drenched in holy dew;
for God Himself, in pity’s dawn,
has wept her illness through.
Her hair, unpinned, cascades like dusk
around a martyr’s brow,
a sable shroud of tender husk
that Time would not allow.
Oh, gaze upon her wasted frame—
a chalice carved of frost;
the ribs, like harps of ivory flame,
sing all that she has lost.
A nurse collapses at her feet;
a doctor faints nearby;
even the dust motes pause, discreet,
to sigh before she dies.
A priest arrives, but chokes with awe,
forgetting every prayer;
her beauty violates his law—
he worships her despair.
Her final breath—a silver thread—
breaks loose from earthly loom,
and in its wake, the very dead
rise weeping from their tomb.
For she ascends—ecstatic, pure—
through clouds of opal flame,
her suffering a vast couture
no mortal soul could claim.
The heavens, rapt in alabast,
unfurl their gates in plea:
“Too tragic! Too divine! Too vast!”
cries all theology.
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