Oh Ophelia
Beautiful maiden of the reeds
Hair long
Dress weighed
down
Skin pale like sallow plaster
Drained of life like alabaster
What drug you here?
Down
down
down
Below to the murky
depths
Eyes widened
Hell’s gaping wound bleeding
blackly
Dear in the headlights
They all said it was mud since
1599
But I reckon it was never the mud,
whose hand was around your throat
No, it was never the dirt clouding your judgment
Nor the crown of stirred dust around your tarnished golden tresses
Driving you to silence
I reckon it was that Cabanel got it right in
1883
You reached out but only the lilies could grab you
You grasped for air and only the water
could comfort you
The cold
cold
Cold
And
The deep
Deep
Depths
No one was there to grab your veiny hand
Clutch your knobby knuckles like a hug of moss
Your father was lying bleeding
Your love was out seething
And no one could come for you
Retrieve you from the deep,
cold,
down-
Below.