What is elegy but the attempt

To rebreathe life

Into what the gone one once was

Before he grew to enormity.

Come on stage and be yourself,

The elegist says to the dead. Show them

Now—after the fact—

What you were meant to be:

The performer of a live song.

A shoe. Now bow.

What is left but this:

The compulsion to tell.

—MARY JO BANG,

from “The Role of Elegy”