She stands alone
next to a woodpile.
A bonnet the color
of bleached muslin
holds a face yellow
as sunlight
on a spring day. Shyly
and silently, head bowed,
she waits, pallid lover
of decay, a bride
forsaken at the altar.
A single stem, skeletal
as death, upraised –
bride of death,
will we rise again
limb by bony limb?