Iodine sky, Emily calls it once.

Iodine, that stings and then heals.

Emily in rapture about that

sky, not calling it coral or yellow

or like the springtime gladiolas, not

like the persimmon or the peach.

No, iodine.  Emily knew.

Did she see in that sky

something of what she would

be, that death would heal

all, maybe even before,

that beauty—a thing worth

dying for—would?

That iodine sky—the sun

making the world so beautiful

as dusk fell. Emily now starts

her writing for the day, closes

the door to the stairs that