i.
That last night the candlelight
wedged Marcia was in the oak
booth among us, her friends.

Those auburn wishes, the fuzz
of an angel, destined never to
touch her best Mohair sweater.

First her slender finger twisted her
golden wedding ring, then fiddled
frantic, tapping a restaurant knife,

Wrought of stainless steel — across
the table reflecting her flame.
Marcia was a new friend, an old

Friend’s fellow teacher, leaving
me hungry, pregnant, weary.
My eyes were a mirror,

My heart a drum. We were all
but twenty—six years old.
Our prongs were eager,
Marcia’s fork pierced

The beef rare, juices
running red. Her neck
taut, her skin parchment,

Fair and beloved by her
muscle. Rayon swirls
of her sea green scarf

Around her temple provided
perch for a dime store owl
with one rhinestone eye,

Her last attire of delight. She who
would be cold in the earth near fifty

Decembers. No blood, no water now
but ash, back, chest & knucklebone.

On November 2nd 1972, at 4:20 am,
in sight of her apartment in Flatbush,
Marcia was mugged.

ii.
Earlier that hurried afternoon
my car stalled, me frenzied,
abandoning ship.

Sinking in the icy rain,
wading stubborn through
the spirals of cocoa sludge.

The flash floods, determined to
get home, work to finish, then
a rest before that good night.

We would hear the silver voice
of Doris Lessing, prim, elegant
as a mouse, discover, “Survival

In a Violent Society.” Later you,
Marcia, tasted that bitter water
I had allowed above my knees.

On November 10th at Kings County
Hospital, having never fully regained
consciousness, after two emergency

Operations, Marcia died.

iii.
Huddled in the back seat of
Gail’s aging Falcon on the way
to the lecture at Rutgers

You, Marcia, whirled your breath,
a labyrinth of steam, explaining
how you had always wanted

To organize volunteers in Brooklyn
helping the world understand why
people do such things.

In April, on the way to the movies,
you Marcia, held hands with your
husband, seeing the storefront

For that congressional campaign,
liking the idea of a young woman
with liberal ideas such as yours.

Running for office, finding
your candidate’s smile,
constant as yours, you

A woman ever in love. Inhaling
the herb deep, we flicked ashes
out the vent, teasing you, full

Of admiration, wanting topic
sentences, the end of fist
fights for all students who

Learned to correct quizzes.
We were fast idiots who
forgot nothing, we were

So unlike you, Marcia.

“The problem is, you don’t know why
or who did it.” Elizabeth Holtzman said,
when asked of her political thoughts

as a result of this crime.

iv.
Late we were, then, circling
for an empty space to park.
At last finding one, we bolted,

Jogged, our bellies full of bread
and roast beef, across the dark
campus, navigating ancient oaks

Then breathless, we arrived;
music pounding in our hearts
announced the aforesaid room

Its tiny rows of metal, folded chairs
occupied. You, Marcia, concerned
that I, eight months pregnant would

Be rising no more from the dusty linoleum,
holding out your hand, you led me down.
Hearing compartmentalization

Of the intellectual and moral climate
of the mid-twentieth century, some
issues of female identity and of

“Briefing for a Descent into Hell,”
a moral fable. You hauled me up,
offering a wrist turned skyward.

I held fast, and lifted, felt a pulse
faint as plum blossoms drifting.
That was all before we burst

Into that moonless chill with you,
who was icy in the earth these
endless Decembers,

No blood no water now,
but ash, back, chest,
and knucklebone.

“… stabbed six times in her chest
and back, received other wounds
on her face, neck, and arms.”

v.
Night! What kind of mother are you anyway?
You, old, serene in your black cape.
Awaken your children at one a.m.

Alone you climb on grey rock and rattle
your call, then float away down river,
your feet smooth stones,

Your head above water. Marcia
had seen you in her poem at
my garden apartment. She

Recalled “Night! Toothless,
an old enemy gnawed and
gnawed out all warmth.”

Gulping her burgundy, Marcia pushed
then pulled waves of liquid fire down,
a network of lava pumped, refined,

White heat beneath pink mohair.

She’d met me already and knew
“I thought she’s be safe after
she married,” her mother said.

vi.
Like Ix Chel*, Marcia came and went
as she pleased. That night, she had
been hunting, when they brought

Her body back, laying slumped against
an old tree in Brooklyn on a sidewalk.
We had burned sandalwood, after

The lecture, torn apart, and devoured
bread and salami, listened in my
apartment to Julian Bream playing

“The Art of Courtly Love.” Could they
have heard her above bull roarers?
Imagine how hard it was for her,

Grueling work to run and slam her
head against the wall screaming,
“help,” wildly waiting for neighbors

She loved. It was Ann Sexton,
she read to us the night we met.
“Men kill for this, or for as much.”

Marcia always wanted to
see things, a mind of her
own like being out at night.

Her pocketbook taken and her
wedding ring later recovered
with her wallet, emptied of $23.

Her father said, “The main reason
Marcia went out on her own is that
I was financially unable to help her.”

*IX Chel is the Mayan moon goddess
who look the sun as her lover only
to find him jealous and unjust.

She took to wandering at night
as she wished, making herself
invisible when the sun god

Came near and spent her
energies nursing women
of the earth through

pregnancy and labor.

vii.
We talked about how crazy
it was to bring any children
into this world — drugs and

Vietnam. And the need
to do it — despite that.
Everything is not rational.

We mused. Wondering if
Rauni had seen that Gail
and I would plant water,

Cultivate five daughters
on two coasts. The crystal
streamed through Marcia’s

Burgundy, glistening in the
wedding decanter. It knew
no bottom and filled the

Glasses with magic. I trudged
through my corridor back and
forth, my bladder

Flat, the target of their glee
rosy as cherries. Marcia had
beaten a merry path down

The squishy carpeted hallway,
her well-heeled Weejuns
kicked aside, her thighs

Squeaking nylon, her fast feet
padded silent, as a downward
glide of the great horned owl.

There was conjecture, then the
giggles, then the plot. Was she
pregnant really or just feeling

The weight? It was late, fleshly
teddies awaited. Yet Marcia did
not protest nor undress that night.

Your head never hit a pillow.
Would you sleep forever?
You were not like that in

The old days, “Her horizons were
different than mine. Nothing
frightened her,” said her sister,

who cold in the earth these fifty
last Decembers, no blood, no
water now, but ash, chest and
knucklebones.

• Rauni is the Finnish goddess associated
  with the mountain ash tree. She is the
  Finnish image of a woman endowed
  with a knowledge of the future.

viii.
We had discussed the New
York parking ritual:
the alternate sides,

That turning over ceremony
comes, in the winter, before
dawn, the hunt precedes

The night for a cherished
spot, the morning rivalry,
transience, and the flow.

Earlier, you’d safety-pinned
a pencilled note to your
husband’s pillow:

“Wake me in the morning at 7,
lover, if I’m parked on the
wrong side of the street.”

But you, Marcia,
you did not park
you chose the

Farther side, the
legal space more
dimly lit. You said,

“Oh, I’m carrying mace,
but I doubt I can use it.”
In the rain and no moon.

Anyhow, the last thing you 
said was. “I will lock
the car door.”

“I felt very vengeful,” her husband said,
“Whether this guy is crazy or not 
is irrelevant.”

ix.
It is long ago now, but Marcia, your
birthday was a time for strawberries
and surprise. Never more.

Oh, I would tear out the eyes of her 

murderer out if I could or dash
his head hundreds of times

Against the wall. Gandhi said,
“You can kill mad dogs.”
Over years we have joined in that

Good fight — gathering signatures,
Petition for the Freeze, march, or

Take Back the Night for what end.

Or lose contact with one another.
Would have been different?
Rauni, you knew; I forgot

To tell you. Her husband said,
“I’m just trying to put myself in
place of whoever did it. It gives

Me some pleasure knowing he
feels hounded.”

x.
The funeral was in the synagogue
where your mother-in-law would
not answer us, beating her

Breasts, starting to fall, moaning.
She has blamed us. If only we
had not talked on and on into

The luscious night, rolled our
tongues over poetry and wine,
rocked our bodies in rhythm

Reveling in our parallels, then
we would never sit here stiff on
shiny black oak behind the mayor,

His head bowed under the ornamentally
jeweled yarmulke. How do we follow?
Her body rigid now in that fine

Carved box at the end of the long
red rug. Marcia had been married
in a sheath of purple and yellow,

Her best colors. As a child, she
always dressed in blue jeans,
loved horses, wore little boys

Shoes, the kind, you know,
with hooves. Then she was
26 and letting her hair grow.

She told us so that night,
her tone hushed. She was
One who stalks her prey.

We put an urn for her in
her box. This is the dust
of little Marcia who,

Recently married, was led
into Persephone’s dark
bedroom, far from home.

We took new-edged blades
To cut in mourning for her
curls of our soft hair.

“The initial thing that attracted me to her
She was so beautiful. She looked so
sophisticated. At first, I was afraid,”

Richard said, describing an Upper East side
party where he and Marcia had met three
years before the end.

She who frigid in the earth these so
many Decembers, no blood no water
now but ash, chest, and knucklebone.

xi.
That dawn the phone rang,
I groped it so many times,
I could not hear all of

What was said, a dull thud, knife
just below my swollen breast.
I thought I would split.

My ripeness opened
pink fluid, dissolved
linen. Just why that

Earth took no notice? They
said don’t see Marcia, so not
to make me sick — tubes,

Respirator. For ten days
my obstetrician prescribed
valium, blank mask for grief.

How could I follow you and
what sacrifice
To return.

You would tell me never more. The
person finding her heard hearsay,
“I was mugged and stabbed.”

Then Marcia passed out.

xii.
She had told us
how she woke at night
craving crosswords.

Unrest can tear at you for
years. On the face of
Mount Shasta under

A certain dappled light
filtered by the firs, we
could be alone, knees

Up toes not touching the ice
fingers gliding under a veil
of shooting stars.

A back leans stiff against
the grey rock. A small bird
flies close by and yellow

Feathers brush a human
shoulder, refuses to sing.
She who in the earth these long

Decembers — not blood not water
now is ash, back, chest, knucklebone.
We will never know the story she is,

Only that in this place, people die,
And do not sleep forever.
A purple mountain reclines.

The granite is alive and in silence, sister.