Thinking About Frances

It wasn't right that they took part
of you out and left you with so little
of yourself. Your beautiful body and slow
smile remained, but that fight--oh that
fight--was stripped down from full
fledged incineration to smoldering
ashes. Why I would think I would take
them up on an opportunity to remove
a lobe here, snip an axon there, leave
the synaptic nerves shaking their
shaky little vessels so I could sleep
for a night eludes me. But I think about
that, tonight, nearing 24 hours with
no sleep, pouring a fourth glass of wine,
my chicken in mushroom sauce with fresh
asparagus an afterthought. Oh, Frances,
you did not ask for that, and I realize
as I think about you, the limitations
of science, of intuition, of living life
on the edge. All inhibitions
hushed, the life force flowing through
the veins as you grabbed and moaned
and cried--all of who you taken
in that room, sun streaming through the bars
of the windows, not one spark of light
remaining in the vacant storefront of memory.

Frances Farmer, 1913-1970