her name refracted in Latin and Greek mean laurels and garlands of flowers celebrate the victory of a brave heart
although her own life was brief she showed no less metal as if forged in a holocaust
a kiln of adversity made her character a legend not of her own making but a cruel God in absentia
she knew just seventeen summers before the last winter stole her from the earth
her fate a diphtheroid plague, a strangulation by a grey membrane deadly to the oxygen of life
her sister was my mother
after 4 nights and 4 days of struggle with the beast came the end.
It was fleet and bloody as her desperate parents summoned help
the doctor came as quickly as anyman but battled his own storm of sleet and ice and vicious wind
his only accomplice his trusty steed loyal as any dog
he surveyed a scene of destruction
there was one option only even as the beautiful child’s soul made ready its transit to heaven
he yielded a sharp blade and incised Loretta Bernice at the neck
his aim to fashion an airway
she bled to death on the kitchen table
later he signed her death certificate
there was little more he could do
Flynnpoetry 