Monuments for a Friendly Girl at a Tenth Grade Party

William E. Stafford

The only relics left are those long

spangled seconds our school clock chipped out

when you crossed the social hall

and we found each other alive,

by our glances never to accept our town's

ways, torture for advancement,

nor ever again be prisoners by choice.

Now I learn you died

serving among the natives of Garden City,

Kansas, part of a Peace Corps

before governments thought of it.

Ruth, over the horizon your friends eat

foreign chaff and have addresses like titles,

but for you the crows and hawks patrol

the old river. May they never

forsake you, nor you need monuments

other than this I make, and the one

I hear clocks chip in that world we found.