There is a hard & noble patience
I admire in my friends who are dead
Though I admit there are none of them
I would change places with
For one thing look how poorly they dress
Only one is still beautiful
& that is because
She chose to drown herself in a Swiss lake
Fed by a glacier said in local myth
To be a pool of the gods
& when her body was found she was so
Preserved by the icy currents
That even her eyelashes seemed to quiver
Beneath my breath
Though that was only for an instant
Before she was strapped to the canvas stretcher
& loaded into a blue van
Soon I was the only person still standing
At the lake’s edge A man made lonely
By such beauty
A man with less than perfect faith in any God