Eleanor

Oh Eleanor, wed to a soldier Poorer and older on Halloween day And maybe you loved him, but you didn't know him And after the wedding he shipped out away Oh Eleanor, living alone Watching the TV and cooking for one Sad like Niobe 'cause everything's stone Your husband, your family, all busy and gone Oh Eleanor, falling in love Filling with sugar and getting dressed up How can I blame you when it's in my blood? You filled up with life at the end of a gun Oh Eleanor, house full of mice Nests in the fabric, boxed up with the lace When your soldier came home, how your body had changed How you brimmed with desire, how you'd stretched in your shame You bore him daughters over and over They cried in their cribs as you lay in your bed Suddenly, marigolds, out in the garden — Their husbands bought rings so that they could be wed Oh Eleanor, stunning and blind Telling the secret that we never die Dialing the radio, dialing the phone Hearing the TV and living alone Do you think of his letter he filled with forgiveness From over the ocean, you threw in the flame? Fifty years later you gather your daughters And tell them, and ask for forgiveness again Oh Eleanor, terrible twin Our bodies warm tangles of sugar and skin Our reincarnations doomed to repeat The womanly thirst that we all learned from Eve