The Colors of Aging

After years of pretending,
she grows her hair gray
to show the world
what it has done,
like Jackie Kennedy
who wanted everyone to see
the blood
of her husband
on her
pink suit.

Gettysburg in Time

As we quickly travel
through a tunnel of time,
scrambling backwards
up the slippery slide,
hunting for history,
we chase the elusive
spirits of the Civil War
as the blinding light
of our own century
bleaches out
the ghosts of the past.

Pompeii

And the people
went on
marrying and being given in marriage
right up to the day
when the liquid fire
covered their lives
and froze them,
together
in a moment
of eternal stagnation.