Take the flowers from the ground
to weave into a wedding crown.
Don the finest gown you own.
Wander from the house alone.
Into the night of deepest black
across the field—no don’t turn back!
Listen for the river’s flow.
She whispers now the way to go.
Ophelia dear, you’re coming close—
Hear you the King’s persistent ghost?
Stay thee from the nunnery
and make your bed among the weeds.
As once you did with Hamlet sleep,
lie peacefully in waters deep.
Let the river take you in
and Hamlet now carry the sin
of bedding a young woman mad,
here, among the lily pads.
Lauren Genevieve Smith is a High School Spanish teacher in Michigan. She holds a degree in English, Education and Spanish from Grand Valley State University. She has been fond of writing and reading poetry since she was a child, and is partial to sonnet form and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.