Pine Mountain Cemetery VI
                Edith

Slate makes poor gravestones.
Look to the left and you can see what
Rain wash does after a spell of time.

Tressie’s sisters are buried there, Ada,
Vera, Dodo, and Edith, Hensley row.
Pretty normal people Edith excepted.

A tale told how a shiny start might fool one.
Too pretty, too spoiled, to shaken by
Tressie’s early death. Something snapped.

There was a time when having the vapors
Was fashionable, this was way before that.
Nothing fashionable about her fits and starts.

Screamed for days, cried for more, then
Silence for months. Beauty could not stand
Against the acid of her anguished mind.

Married well in a brief sane year, two
Children lived, one died, Priscilla.
Never was a peaceful moment after.

Husband philandered, kids mousy dull,
Again too pretty to amount to much.
Edith’s plight hidden for years, today

A white pill cure would be all it would
Take to turn her story better. Fitting
She should be buried under failing slate.