A poem for Liza Olhovsky.

I wrote this poem for two reasons: In honor of Liza and for my poetry class. For those who weren't there, I based this off the fact that in her coffin, Liza still had a smile on her face. The faintest of smiles, but a smile nonetheless.

For those of you who know how poetry is supposed to be read, read it that way... for those who don't, the poem has internal rhyme within the lines, but read it based on the punctuation, not the line break and you'll hear the intended rhythm and emotion I was going for.



Smile…

You were alive… Once.
And then you died… Months
and months went by.
Everybody cried.
Nobody could believe it,
Why oh why, oh why?
It felt like a lie.
Laughter in the sky,
you were talking to us like “Ha, ha, ha, surprise!”

But then you saw us sigh.
Nobody realized,
when we looked at you we didn’t see the signs.
And there you were, just lying
inside the coffin, smiling.
That typical, sly, Elizabethan smile.
The one we all adore.

The one we all adored.
But you just couldn’t take it,
life without your father – was it such a bore?
Waiting for results now, there’s nothing to explore.
I smell you in my lungs.
I see you in my pores.
And I still can’t believe you, but I just can’t ignore…
This feeling’s so unusual –
of course – it was a funeral.
And I know you were smiling
‘cause you knew you looked beautiful.