Maria

Maria, our Marie Curie,
for radioactivity,
polonium and radium,
for X-rays, radon, curium
remembered by posterity.

A life lived in fragility,
a half-life in humility,
a fracture of the cranium,
Maria.

An asteroid they named Curie;
twin suns Physics and Chemistry.
Pale light in the sanatorium,
your entrance to Elysium,
the Fields you could not bear to see,
Maria.