*Lydia, Lydia,
There are broken angels
beneath your skin.
Your face is stone,
and white as snow,
where the color should have been.
Your husband is by your side,
middle school passion left undead.
Your sister over your right shoulder,
smiling like the day you wed.
You don't hear Zach's talk of cereals,
but a tight smile shows on your face.
The greif streaked grime of tears and salt
rims your neck like wedding lace.
Tomorrow you will rise
and pour milk into your bowl.
Look across the table,
just to feel your crushing soul.
To not see the eyes
that were there for twenty years.
To share no more secrets,
or confide her sisterly fears.
You both spent your life devoted
to three hundred sixty-five words
of repiticious hope.
Only to wake up with the flipping of a page,
to find a car bent in ash and smoke.
This hollow eyed shell I saw in the store
clenched her teeth up tight,
to suffer along like the people of The Book,
and hold Faith to Father of Light.
You made me shed tears for you,
Madison,
because you made me come to see
I would never leave my little sister
By any of my own means.
I felt cheated for you,
so joyous in your Word.
To spread the light of God
to every part of Earth.
But now you are away,
taking flight,
still this young.
I go home with knotted throat,
and my eyes felling as if theyd been stung.
I've been thinking of you both,
Sisters,
by blood and faith.
I'm so sorry for your loss,
the unknowing,
all the rage.
I weep for you, dear Madison.
You lived only in a blink.
But I weep for you still more, Lydia.
And I pray that you won't sink.*