Jane, how could you?

After his books burned in the fire and
he left you to supply the miners

Did you feel abandoned?

The railroad money flowed
and you were a fine hostess, my dear.
But the universe would not abide
calling back the only thing you ever loved.

Jane, your suspicions had good cause.

Born on 11:11,
a fortress of arches and corbels
fed with your mother’s milk
nursed into existence.

You refused to lose another child.

Your mother’s gaze left with nothing to caress
save the sun-drenched marble;
a golden facade to hide your pain.

Loving those golden doors
with an unwavering tenacity;
clutching your only offspring
close to your breast.

Mere feathers in an empty nest.

Under patriarchal pressure
from the east,
vowing to never be
a second Vassar,
weak and emasculated.
We are a castle of ivy, you cried,
not an orchard in bloom.

A seed planted in name of your son-
grown in his memory-
should never bear such fertile fruit.
Each earthy golden pear
an affront to his manhood.

Jane, you traitor!
Susan B could never look you in the eye again.
That such an edict
Should come through a woman!

To plant a garden of narcissus
where daffodils should grow.

Yet sacrifice
would not save you.

A sip at 11:11,
soft sand,
spring water,
silence.

A tropical whitewash.

Now she stands near her men,
a little below and off to the side,
subservient to eternity.

Sweet Jane,
would things have changed
if you had borne a girl?