Ash Bowen

The Last Love Letter of Marie Curie

Polish-born Marie Sklodowska made great scientific achievements in radiology after moving to Paris, where she married French physicist Pierre Curie before dying from long-term exposure to radiation.

Please put me with your hands. My palms are empty.
I counted down from ten each time I dared
to think you loved me. Now, of course, I’m scared
I’ll seduce the second world too soon and empty
this first one out before I’ve finished it.
Among my scattered notes you’ll find the first
heart I ever drew. Written in the worst
French, Please, put me with your hands. And it
meant that I wanted to feel surrendered to.
Some nights, awake, I wonder why we leave
the dust behind that we do. Does grief grieve
itself? The cells and circumstances we liken to
living are what slough away. We’ve seen the light
that grows inside us. Long as bones. And white.

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Ash Bowen is the author of one poetry collection, The Even Years of Marriage (Winner, Orphic Prize, Dream Horse Press). Other poems can be found in Blackbird, Rust & Moth, Passages North, New England Review, Cream City Review, Verse Daily and elsewhere in print and online.