According to the
custom of my kinsmen
I used to say "Haven School
6th Grade bullshit," could they
have heard it the rocks would have wept.
You were a person who felt deeply,
allusion to the Spanish armada 1588,
and one who nursed a secret sorrow,
my upstairs neighbor.
I am obliged to give you Frances M Shaltuck,
the best employer anyone ever had,
a very dear friend Vera,
and an article that belonged to her:
artistic embodiment of
a hormonious fusion of intellect and emotion,
to be used in case of emergency.
(This I hoped would ease her mind and provoke
her to create for others Caldwell Agnew;
often I would curse and berate Evanston Illinois.)
From hatred and rivalry we turn to
tomorrow page 25,
a moonlit night and lovers.
Mona Diehl,
following her death - May 2, 1928 -
but she persisted.