Requiem

Sing the mass— light upon me washing words now that I am gone. The sky was a hot, blue sheet the summer breeze fanned out and over the town. I could have lived forever under that sky. Forgetting where I was, I looked left, not right, crossed into a street and stepped in front of the bus that ended me. Will you believe me when I tell you it was beautiful— my left leg turned to uselessness and my right shoe flung some distance down the road? Will you believe me when I tell you I had never been so in love with anyone as I was, then, with everyone I saw? The way an age-worn man held his wife’s shaking arm, supporting the weight that seemed to sing from the heart she clutched. Knowing her eyes embraced the pile that was me, he guided her sacked body through the crowd. And the way one woman began a fast the moment she looked under the wheel. I saw her swear off decadence. I saw her start to pray. You see, I was so beautiful the woman sent to clean the street used words like police tape to keep back a young boy seconds before he rounded the grisly bumper. The woman who cordoned the area feared my memory would fly him through the world on pinions of passion much as, later, the sight of my awful beauty pulled her down to tears when she pooled my blood with water and swiftly, swiftly washed my stains away.