JEWEL IN A CROSS

(in memory of Will Shakespere's sister…be-
cause she left no name and never raised her voice.
She committed suicide and was in fact, buried at a crossroad. And with thanks to Virginia Wolfe who first told me Shakespere even had a sister.)


She died…
crippled by confinement
in a woman's body
in the middle ages--
never having felt the flow
of pen's blood
etching words on pages.
She was young
and yearning
for the great beyond
that lives just out of reach,
in some untouchable place
where the freedom of silence
can screech out
in peace,
breathe undisturbed
by needy voices,
the call of dusty furniture,
the constant droning noises
of a woman's life
in the middle ages.

She was buried at a crossroad;
cast no shadow over time,
left behind no legacy
no neatly ordered rhyme
nor prosaic reason
for her presence.
As if she never was.

Her only failure
was to follow "natural laws"
that stipulated every woman's move…
how to breathe
and who to love.
She had genius
and adventure in her heart
but qualities like these
were never written in her part.
And so, naturally, she broke the rules.

Dying,
she broke free…
somewhere in the glow of stars
the whispered soliloquy
of the female who failed
to be a mister…
jewel in a cross
the buried song
of William Shakespere's sister.