The Stoop (2000)

The actual "Stoop" was torn down when ECHS was remodeled in 2005

The Stoop
"for Sy"

As we

The Stoop seems smaller
Than we remembered
But then it always does when you are a
Been-to
“Maybe we just got bigger”, the first love says leaning heavily against the New Car, “We have gained some weight.”

The irony of cycles.
(Later, he asks is the ring yours or did somebody buy it for you?)
I don’t know.
(Don’t worry about what I do.)
a conciliatory hug.


Yes we are Bigger butterflies, with bigger-better things to do
In-such-a-short- cycle.

We stand there numbering twelve
But one has gone on
Us: unfinished in between broken notes
Opuses of what?
Us: Bigger, heavier, handsomer, cockier
the rain bigger than us all, pelts us in our Sunday clothes
The STOOP, which is surprisingly unyielding, is made of stone

Let this body

I will always remember the red dress
No virginal white Victorian princess fringes
Red.

You can’t wear red, we said. That mess would be ugly.
Not if I’m wearing it, she stated.

She

Wore red when
Sleeping
Or dreaming
In odd apple shades.
We drank rose colored baptismal waters
Out of water fountains in the midst of the garden
Pricking our fingers on a misplaced thorn


Go

The wedding cake, the party,
Full moon in June
And the red wedding dress
With wickedly beautiful insanely spinning
Ends
Is the kind you dream about
The kind of dream that makes you pinch yourself
While
praying you wake up
But then you go back to thinking
Visions of a sunset is really a nice theme for senior ball, isn’t it?


And commit

Yes, no wedding cakes,
No babies
No diploma
The diploma will sit in the ivory tower of academia
(That tower which was always chilly.)
Unclaimed

But she is not unclaimed.

This sister

Was buried at Sunset Hills
The lowering is the strange thing
The spirit ascends
But the body is lowered.
The seven of us, sisters if not by blood, by bloodshed
A perfect line, body by body
Are still
Long after the body is lowered, and others start to move
The dirt is so accepting
In death.

We didn’t even know she had a boyfriend.
When they called and told us
We didn’t even know.
The red stained sheets she used to wrap herself
Scattered about the floor

To earth

The baby was born alive, Tashi says
The insurance didn’t cover the baby
It was in the casket, you just couldn’t see.

The patriarchy is not a pecking order
Yet here we are
are standing
On line
Seven
The indivisible number.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.


But,
We are not made of stone.
We are named, and claimed by us.

What God brings together is holy matrimony
Let no man put asunder.

After, there is a change.
We put on our red dresses
And go dancing
In the rain
As we were born to do
And that is what she would have wanted.