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O Happy Dagger! by Annah Inocente
Like a hanged murderess
unrelenting still,
clawing at the satin lining
in a coffin nailed shut.
Sounds float above ground—
a mud-dampened thud,
a pitiable scrape;
some assemble to decipher
muted noises of attempted escape.
"Trying to break through?
You'd scare us to death
if you ever actually do,"
and they let out a breath
and laugh.
Struggling from inside her grave
to reach and pull others inside;
with rope burn ringed 'round her throat,
she cries,
"I am not yet expired,
I've been buried alive!"
This, however, comes from outside.
Indeed a dead woman lay
inside her varnished tomb,
vital signs diminished,
a life finished in a courtroom
some idle spring day.
Her ghost may haunt and cry
and spill the vodka and writhe.
But her bones hide sub-terrain,
dead brain, dead heart, dead eye,
flesh diminished, consumed—
she is not to be exhumed—
let her die.