Virgin

(College Poetry and Art. I found another one!)

For Kevin,

The funny thing is.

White glue doesn’t heal.
I tried eating it already.
It tasted of yeast, like cum does.
I am thinking of the girl who got HIV
The girl who was in my class,
She died today.
I knew of its inevitability,
But it is still bullshit,
She didn’t mean to die.

I can hear her crying
in the coffin.
She doesn’t like what she is wearing.
Did they put her in
her prom dress,
or in her gown?
I don’t know if
she graduated.

The glue is drying on the table top,
I use a tooth pick to scrap it away.
I put it around the hole in my stocking
so the ladder would not go astray.
She never meant to die.

A joke is it not?
The coffin is laughing.
A joke isn’t it?

Her mother took it so.
Her family is guffawing too.
The wood box is sharing a joke.
“Put her in a crown.”
It said
“Let her be a virgin!” They agreed,
“After all, she was so young.”

*In the catacombs in France, a crown is placed on a woman’s head if she dies a virgin. It is one of the highest honours attributed to the dead.