Visitation

A Villanelle

by Cristina Nehring (November 2024)

Whatever the cost you arrived right on cue.
Relationships fell through; the world was unhinged.
Of visitors like you there are only a few.
–
Your father was bitter; your mother was lost;
The future was as opaque as onyx.
Whatever the cost you arrived right on cue.
–
A child with an extra chromosome you
Took Paris by storm while it was dozing away.
Of visitors like you there are only a few.
–
You shook up the town; you exploded your family;
You conferred on all things a kind of gravity.
Whatever the cost you arrived right on cue.
–
The future became clear of a sudden; the past was dismissed.
From your little glass box in Intensive Care, you blessed all who cast their aspersions.
Of visitors like you, there are only a few.
–
No one was ready; no one knew what to do,
But they did it regardless and the sun resumed its place in the skies over France.
Whatever the cost you arrived right on cue.
Of visitors like you, there are only a few.
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