The Ultimate Crime

 All she wrote was fantasy, yet wasn't just her art,
 it was a place he shared with her and took her to his heart.
 He cradled her in tenderness and filled the empty part
 of womanhood so long denied, afraid of any start.

 Now on an icy garden bench she sits in reverie,
but nothing there holds out the warmth of loving memory.
She tries to paint again the care he promised they would be,
but all the pictures in her mind revolve there emptily.

She stumbles in a darkened land, one shadow follows her,
 where two before had shared the dream of everything they were.
 No whispered words of lullaby in barren branches stir
 no gentle arms to shelter in, no Valiant strong and sure.

 Her heart aches now with all the love she has to give to him,
 but emptiness awaits her gaze, an anguished hope grows dim,
 and all the crystal dreams she wrote are shattered, black and grim
thorny brambles grow there now to strangle at their whim.

A mirror to an empty soul looks from her shadowed eyes.
 A question jagged stabs at her, a constant painful why?
 Why could he not have left the dreams, though they be wistful lies?
 Why take from her the memories that help her to survive?

 Beneath an icy garden bench she curls upon herself,
the barren branches shelter her, the wind howls prairie shelf,
 her past of tortured memories returns in feral stealth
and darkness crawls into her soul to smother woman's wealth.©
10-20-99  RAC