Eternal Ghazal
by Alison Stone
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We wipe tears on our sleeve. The dead stay dead.
No matter how we grieve, the dead stay dead. Do angels guard us? Are birds souls of those we’ve lost? Don’t be naive. The dead stay dead. His brother, tanned, in swim trunks, reaches out. Despite a dream’s reprieve, the dead stay dead. Naked, pre-apple, were we immortal? Too easy to blame Eve. The dead stay dead or else come back in bodies we won’t know. Judged by what we perceive, the dead stay dead. Robot surgeons, men on the moon. Even with what science can achieve, the dead stay dead. Moved by his song, Hades gave Orpheus permission to retrieve the dead. Stay dead, Eurydice wished as she walked. He turned. In the sad myths we weave, the dead stay dead. Is that her voice? His sneakers on the stairs? Our dumb senses deceive. The dead stay dead. How can some sky kingdom be paradise if we can never leave? The dead stay dead, though Stone sees her mother come back in her daughter’s face. Won’t believe the dead stay dead. |
Alison Stone has published nine full-length collections, including Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2019), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, others. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin Award. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot: stonetarot.com
A 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee, Stone's poem can be found in Issue 31 of Glassworks.
