Molly Fisk: Elegy (for Leah)

At times a woman half-way through a door 
          looks like the one who jumped last winter 
from the highway bridge, her car a different 
          color but otherwise like mine, abandoned
in the public lot, her body found months later 
          down river floating near the dam. We stood 
together once on stage — her infinite soprano 
          and my street drawl voicing words that could 
depress a saint, though never who
          by water, a line Cohen borrowed from the Jewish
recitation, which neither of us exhaled through 
          our parted lips to join the motes turning slowly
in the spotlight's golden shaft. But we heard it. 
          And — perhaps the only time we truly spoke 
— agreed backstage that it was holy.

Copyright 2020 Molly Fisk

Molly Fisk’s books include The More Difficult Beauty (Hip Pocket Press, 2010).