Poetry: In Memoriam, Ethel Rosenberg

Ethel Rosenberg

After the years
wiping china clean
pouring coffee
from your breasts
in a flowered dress
typing at night
his letters
incantation at the typewriter
let me be

let me speak
let me be
Believing more
more than he
more than they
typing out
a vision of the world
no one would read
but yourself
and knowing the melody
singing your way
through orchards
of diapers

After all that
naturally
he went first
and you heard
the current coming
like the sound
of typewriter keys
like rain
you sang
incantation in the electric chair
and burned
like Joan
slowly, with your feet on the ground