You loved children.
You taught vacation bible school in the summers.
You worked on the church nativity scenes,
but what I want to know
what I need to know
is that, just once
and maybe more than once
you opened your arms, simply
and spun, breathed summer
and tasted winter under your tongue
like something metal.
Maybe you fell in love in ninth grade
with the boy who sat in front of you in algebra,
wanted to wrap the hair
touching the back of his collar
around your fingers
at least one time,
and I hope once you danced
with that boy or another like him,
slowly, to some pop beat
but a slow one,
and I hope that once
you walked in a field heavy with poppies
or daisies, or asters,
or whatever blooms in that hot dust
they covered you with
before you were done breathing.
Susan Daniels Poetry 
Oh gosh, this is heart-wrenching.
Thanks, Starra. i had to do it.
It’s lovely.
Heart-stopping. Beautiful. I fell into the deep well of the life and lost life. Thanks for writing this.
Thanks, Alice, for reading this. I had to say something.
I could hear your drive to speak in this one. This personal energy pulled me in.
Alice, wow, thank you. Had to tell part of her imagined story that didn’t make it into the family’s statement about her. What they said, while heartfelt and sad, just did not tell me anything about who she was, just what she did.
I went and read that note after I read you poem. Your poem opened my heart to the possibilities of her. Good work.
Thanks, Alice. Now I think you know why I had to do it.
Yup. I think so, too.
That has got to be the best thing I have ever read by you. There is something intensely personal and longing about it. I don’t know who this person is, but actually I think I do now. Someone I never pictured or thought about or knew walked the world same time as mine (if she exists – but she does exist); and now I know her. I think this pulled at every part of me that actually still feels something, Susan.
Oh, good goddess, Trent, thank you. Means a lot that this did that for you. She is real. She died at 19, and I just learned her story this week. Had to do it.
Glad you did, Susan.
I like how vivid this is and how easily you swept me along. I really enjoyed this, Susan even if it is sad. I think that this is my favorite part:
and maybe more than once
you opened your arms, simply
and spun, breathed summer
and tasted winter under your tongue
like something metal.
I like how seemingly effortless the images, the motion, the cadence and the rhyme all fit together. It really is very lovely. 🙂
Jeremy, thanks. Means a lot, coming from you. I absolutely had to write this. It came all at once.
And this is why I so love your writing. Always so much depth beautifully conveyed in your words Susan.
Aw, thanks, honey. I just had to do this for her. Everyone’s wringing their hands over the guy responsible, and no-one’s really talking about her.