Bride

I was long dead before you singed me.
I sat bolt upright, got back my yodeling form
       and shocked the castle cats. Before my lightning 'do
struck you down hard to the cobbled floor,
       a boxer overmatched, I was vacant socket.

All men are monsters, mother crooned.
       The night before I was buried
I dreamed a surgeon
       tweaking my body like a transistor radio.
I never felt a thing. Many things at once.

       And these are my blood lines, which creaked
out of the core of the Carpathians,
       lapped to a dry rust stain by the large
predatory birds that dwell in crags.

Some kind one conducted my heart
       back to its basal rhythm.
Oh screw me tighter or I'll come
       undone.

Copyright © 2002 Jeanne Marie Beaumont All rights reserved
from River Styx
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission