Obituary
April 9th, 2002
By C E Laine

There was no picture
in the press that day.

I imagine you blue veined,
clothes peeled like crawfish,
your tiny, slick mouth
a new bloom, opened
and exactly that quiet-

your laughter flowing
down the drain in a tornado
made of water and breath

small, just like you- but
big enough to suck up
the shiny red tricycle
and candy coated lips
you can't have, now

C. E. Laine is a contraction of Christine Elaine (her first and middle names), in case you were wondering. Active in aviation, she is a student pilot, and is the public information officer for a local non-profit flying museum, which is dedicated to the preservation of World War II aircraft.

In the past, she's been a magician's assistant, a baker, an extra in a few movies, a licensed artist in New Orleans' French Quarter, and a soldier in this girl's U. S. Army. She enjoys making lists on sticky notes when she isn't writing poems. Her work has appeared in Poems Niederngasse, New World Poetry, Free Zone Quarterly, Poetry Super Highway, Countless Horizons, The White Shoe Irregular, Bay Review Liberal Arts Journal, Friction Magazine, 2River View, Kota Press, Absinthe, Stirring (writing as Kit Sullivan), Clean Sheets, Erosha, Beauty for Ashes, Ludlow Press, Pierian Springs, AnotherSun and The Melic Review. She is also a contributor to "In Their Own Words; a generation defining itself" Vols. 3 and 4. Her collection of poetry entitled "The Poverty of Birds" will appear in the anthology Before the Last Shadow Fades – A Shadow Poetry Collection Vol. 3 later this year (22 poems). Her first book of poetry, called allegory (ISBN: 0-595-22462-8), was published this spring. Her second book, The Weight of Dust, will be released later this year (link: celaine.com).