BILLIE HOLIDAY

On those last records her voice
sounds almost gone—
cracking, breaking—but hitting
notes wasn't the point.
She was after the bones of beauty
not the flesh.  It was far
too late for anything else.
She sang what must happen,
what has, the death of gardenias,
the abyss that the abyss
falls into.  It all scraped along...

Vern Rutsala at Poetry Foundation

Vern Rutsala at Academy of American Poets

National Book Awards finalist 2005