On the eighth of March
that sweet spring evening-
when little crocus buds poked
their curious heads from the dirt,
a little girl with sugar-blonde hair
and denim-blue eyes
fell backwards to the ground.
Her death was not poetic.
A tennis ball hit her tiny pink chest
and they called it a “heart concussion”-
the newspapers remind us:
“1992-2002”
because it hurts more on paper.
Her mother watched her die
which is more poetic
since tragedy is somehow beautiful
and a mother running to that sweet light hair
and looking straight into those sea blue eyes
is both beautifully tragic
and tragically beautiful.
A mother, a physician,

giving her daughter her last breaths
pumping her own loving air into her little girl--
her little girl
the artist who loved to climb trees
her little girl
the athlete who loved her new laptop computer.
Her little girl who was no longer called Audrey,
so people let their voices fall silent
because they can’t say that name anymore
and they all see tragedy
in the soft white hair
and red crying eyes
of that girl’s little sister.