For Megan Boken (23) and Emilie Parker (6) by Hilary Korabik

Emilie Parker (6)

Megan Boken (23)

Here’s a poem I wrote for Megan Boken, a Saint Louis University graduate who was killed this summer while visiting St. Louis and for Emilie Parker, one of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.

 Contagious:

“her laugh, her laugh her laugh.”

In my heart I am holding your souls,

and I can feel you holding me back.

We are all blue-eyed blondes

with distinct laughs.

Now you two are angels, and I can feel

the flutter of your laughter echoing

my heartbeat.

Milan Kundera writes:

“The two sisters stretched out on their bed are not laughing

at anything concrete,

their laughter has no object;

it is an expression of being, rejoicing at being.”

You are still being, beating

in our hearts and in our memories;

your laughter is a whisper,

a reminder to ‘rejoice at being,’

for we never know how long we shall ‘be’ here.

In August and December I could feel

my heart hanging on a string,

the only thing holding it together was

your laughter.

Laughter and tears are lovers

who cannot bear to be left alone for too long;

today we are crying and in a few

we will laugh, because just as laughter

brings tears, tears inevitably

remind us to rejoice at our being,

to laugh, laugh, laugh.