The headline of the morning paper
read:  Woman's Life is Taken.
They found no body.
No need for an obituary,
all the details of her story fit
in a two by three inch column.  

They didn't know about you.

And the man reading the paper over
his bowl of oatmeal, for once
would miss count the raisins
that he, for fifty years,
carefully dropped in a pyramid
pattern atop the soupy bowl of grain.
He couldn't imagine what possessed her.
He thought: This is why I never married.
He thought.  This is why
I'm  glad I'm  a man.

He didn't know about you.

And the woman who's eyes filled with
tears that stained her face black,
wished she hadn't bought the paper
for the coupons, wished she
didn't understand exactly
what happened, wished there
was a cure for love.  She thought:  
No body...no heart to donate to science....

She once knew  someone like you.