Ninety-four years
I will check the encyclopaedias
Close to tears
It's still too long a lifetime
To show the fears
Far too long a lifetime
But to falsify
To become ‘a treasure my dears’
Is ever too long a lifetime
Ninety-four years
A few may still survive
But you (in 1915)
You were taken
A short lived
But truthful long lifetime
Twice I misspell your name
Twice your name
From two new people
The shout for fame
Twice the game
To play alongside Picasso
From Poland she came
Now twice
Turns you into two lifetimes
Did you ever marry
Twice the Z
Misses its turn
I hear you learnt from Rodin
How movement was earned
Two views - neither spurned
Agitated, restless
Without ease or grace or space
No capture or essence; out of sorts
Unworthy, shallow in your shadow
Slow down, breathe steady
Past artefacts in clear sealed cases
All else is laid to rest; fails the test
All else is for the imagination
See; we see your contemporaries
We saw you otherwise, you died at twenty-three
Me, I am here now
I am worldly wise, I lied at twenty-three
See me; I saw it otherwise
The taste leaves no memory, here approaching seventy-three
Me see; I saw it otherwise
Hope would not let me be, but to talk; talk could set me free
I heard of a friend who'd passed away, heading overseas
Away from the steps that my mother scrubbed, serving on her knees
I read of a life taken still at just on twenty-three
In my mind to set, what his contemporaries believed
You wonder in a quarter of a life could a voice be heard
Without the span of time ahead could resonance reverb?
Those who take the longer path whose life approach full term
My mother, Giacometti, Picasso, are they steadier, starboard to stern
