Her mad songs over, Ophelia darts out,
anxious to check offstage whether her dress is
still not too crumpled, whether her blond tresses
frame her face as they should.
Since real life’s laws
require facts, she, Polonius’s true
daughter, carefully washes black despair
out of her eyebrows, and is not above
counting the leaves she’s combed out of her hair.
Oh, may Denmark forgive you, my dear, and me too:
I’ll die with wings, I’ll live on with practical claws.
Non omnis moriar of love.