Alice 3
I might be Alice.
I might be Alice Tierney.
I cannot tell you where I come from,
but I can tell you where I’ve been.
I’ve been in bars where men profess love,
only to turn their backs when the next ship comes in.
I have lost lovers to conscription and civil war.
I have lost lovers to the meddling church,
and the cruel illness of Philadelphia summers.
But I have gained as I have lost,
and I have loved more than most.
Live on, all those who love and wish to be loved.
Destroy all but the proof of your passion
for the future to hold and judge.
In the end, the gavel sounds, a jury stands,
and I swing from a fence behind a boarding house.
A murder? A mistake? A suicide in the rough?
I might be Alice Tierney.