11- Death of a Queen

I am immortal.  Death is just a door
between rooms in my many-chambered hall.
Though people mourn – and pile up, more and more,
the flowers to crest against the palace wall.

They celebrate my death.  They want to learn
through me the road past life.  They need to fill
this road with their own tears.  Through me they earn
an insight, lift a corner of the veil.

To work my sacrifice – I must be young,
my beauty worshipped, meet a sudden end
by violence, or by the serpent’s tongue.
I do this work again – and yet again.

They hold an inquest:  ask “was this well done?”
My dying thoughts are for my two lost sons.

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