Owen Dodson – Finally, Lady, You Are Gone From Us

Owen Dodson – For Billie Holiday: Finally, Lady, You Are Gone from Us
From LoC recording, FFwd to 37:50: https://www.loc.gov/item/93843097/
Black American Literature Forum 18, no. 1 (Spring 1984)

Then they starched you, Billie, in your shroud;
Gardenias, orchids — all proclaimed you dead:
Musical gangsters, hucksters, feeble friends proud
To publicly rejoice . . . and scratch. (You had the nerve to wed
Your psalms of love, of shredded love, with taste.)
The larynx of your tartar bird, they split,
They bled it, they crossed it with the waste
Of birds autopsied, carrion, neon, fit
For alley hops. Finally, before they carried you to dirt,
Nothing was further necessary for shame:
They stood the cops before your final hurt,
They snitched away relief from final pain,
They asked for curses, signatures, for photo looks,
Approached your bed and snatched your comic books.