So Not Right (Poetry)

How can such news be right —
that fresh-faced laughing schoolgirl is no more?
What justice black and white
decreed she go so early through death’s door?

How can her race be run? —
We started off together sharing books and secrets, too
the easy friendship of the young
cheerfully enduring middle-age on through ...

Why drop the curtain now?
No chance, then, of ten extra years, or just
a little longer granted, anyhow?
Instead we talk of ashes — dust to dust

Surely it is all some big mistake (?)
I can’t believe she’s gone — that can’t be right! —
Me — lying here — restless and awake
while she’s slipped past and lost to endless night