YOUR DEATH

By Lavender Hemlock

Before your end, I’d plucked my lashes one by one,

counting the hairs on my arm to burn

with the end of the incense stick you stole from me,

my scent at your fingertips, in your mouth.

Your touch through the smoke carried me

into a pit of spider lilies and sour milk.

Before, the lipstick stains on my teeth

and the crust of my bread matched my wine.

I ate a feast, learning of your last heartbeat.

Our servants swept for every sooty penny,

plucked the coins beneath the soles of my slippers,

and rode your black horses to the countryside.

My garden died. I left it with every thing.

I am the mother of a collapsed womb —

a wife with an underground husband

walking in torn silk on ripped off toenails

deep in the woods where the dead worry. Moonlight

dares not shine between skeletal branches.

My feet bare to prickling leaf and thorn

bleed a path no one will follow.

I laughed at your death. I wept for my life.

These golden heels, soft lace, threads of jewels

were never my own, merely a man’s

soon for another man’s girl. My last necklace

is tied with ivy. I cry, seeing the men

cross our door, gathering my garbs.

For who is a woman without her gown?

#darkpoetsclub