My Lover Does Not Deserve Black--By Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios--United States

My Lover Does Not Deserve Black

I wear scarlet to his funeral,

 a beautiful floor-length silk

with sleeves 

that flick the air like flames,

a splash of red electricity. 

I swirl with bagpipe's skirls 

the sound drenching

the mourners 

crushed in black, 

mute and dark eyed.

My throat, torn open, 

pours out scarlet grief 

which splashes the sky, 

stains my skin,

and smears the air with roses.

I am the solitary scarlet bell.

Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios' award winning chapbook, Special Delivery, was published in the spring of 2016.  She has poems published in various anthologies including Stories of Music, Love Notes from Humanity, Poeming Pidgeon, Passager, NILVX, Unsplendid, Scissors and Spackle and the American Journal of Poetry. She is a Professor Emerita from American University, artistic director of the Redwoods Opera in Mendocino, California, and has spent much of her life performing as a singing artist across Europe and the United States.