Bluebeard married six times

I was the latest of the wives.

There was no dark castle,

No haunting, silver streak man

As vast and virile and tempting

As torrents and spires over dark waters,

Luring in the village girls with acts

and Threats of love like the sweet

Dripping honey rot down one’s tongue.

And when the village girls grew scarce

And scared that if to rain to love, they would

Find their sisters hung lifeless, not more or less

Than meat, in some dark cage or hanger where

Girls turn into birds and and served

Legs spread upon his plate.

When the village girls grew scarce,

He moved up and on to the grander prizes

Of the cities, then by chance, up and up

To the icy solitude teeming over with society.

Finding in its ranks the next to be sacrificed to

Such indulgent self-mortification, the sort one

May mistake as love, if they look closely enough.

I have never met such an expert in the art of it all,

Turning each thrust of the whip’s lashing into the

Most beautiful sort of martyrdom for us both.

Although I do hate being the crucifix, I hate that

He thinks it was anyone but him that succumbed

To death within my wooden arms which he carried

Up himself. After all, only a skilled carpenter could

Carve something as grand as this.

But I let myself be eaten, for I too would feast,

Let my teeth sink into each limb and tear at my

Tender, bitter, loving flesh. All the vices of the

Sinning creatures and all the grace of God sat

Before me - my hips, my breasts on his plate-

And tried very hard to tell me through each bite

That he was the devil, that there were six wives

Hung in the meat cellar that he hunted like ducks.

But I could never believe him. Although I’d find

The wives eventually, I never did find the devil.

For under the gilt suit of armour which he war

As he went to wage battle upon my feeble

Heart, was the Morning Star for a heart, like

The saddest, most frightened Venus himself.

So I waited for him to fall asleep by my side

(It was the last time, as I only know now) 

And I crawled out of bed, picking with

Soft and tender fingers, the keys beneath his

Flesh, with so much love as to not wake him.

The keys lay under his skin, so that with each

Motion to and fro there was a clink clink clink.

With my Judas-fingers round his neck, the last

Key in my hand.

I went and freed the bird-women from their cages

But still they were dead. So hanging there they

Remained, their heads strung up, severed from

Their necks. I screamed and screamed and bid

Them to fly, far away from the horrible, loving

Bluebeard, promising my own flesh would

Tide him over till his death. But still they did not

Move, did not sting feathers and fly. They just

Hung there like The Dead they were.

Worst of all, was the half alive thing in

The corner. So mauled you wouldn’t know

It except for the withered and blackened lungs

Still pulsing. For lack of knowing what to do,

For neither wanting my lover’s past loves buried

In my flower beds, nor to let them rot in my home,

I set the whole room alight

Because they would neither fly, nor die,

Making note to myself to come back in my

Apron and pin curls to vacuum it all up.

So, swinging the bloodied key round and round

On my finger like a ring, splattering the walls like

Pollock as I went (although we never did like him).

The stone of the floor was cold and sharp against my feet

As I climbed the spiraling, dizzying stairs back up

To my wedding bed, to the sheets I chose,

To where she should still be asleep.

But as I entered the bedroom, my bedroom,

Already stripping off my charred and mortal flesh,

I was overcome with a sickening convulsion of grief.

Not for the wives, not for myself, not even for him

But for the meat  - don’t I deserve a seat at the feast?

I could have been sick right there, if I hadn’t felt

His blue, blue eyes watching me.

I remember once being told that the most sinful

Of the devout was dearer to God than the best of the skeptics

Because they defied out of either hate or fear or love.

But there I stood, engulfed in his eyes

Emblazoned by the haze of lamp-light,

Every shadow, every light, as they played betwixt

His bloody locks, asked of me:

What is God to the starving?

He drew himself up from within the tousled sheets,

His footsteps like water on the stone floors,

And summoned me to kneel at the foot of the bed.

From within his thigh he drew a dagger,

Sparkling a most sinister silver and crusted with

Weeping pearls and hungry rubies.

He brought the blade beneath my jaw,

The spot still bruised by his kiss, like a bullseye.

Still apart from his craning neck, bending to meet

My mouth, stained and sweetened like blood

And wrenches a kiss from out my lips.

And then, still ensnared, he turned

The blade upon himself. Thrust into his ribs:

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times.

And with each twist within his chest, he choked and convulsed his blood,

Which traveled to his lips like Styx, pouring down my throat.

I pulled the dagger out his palm but what could that do?

And there he bled and twitched my a rabbit in my lap.

With the dagger in my hand, I did what a good hunter would do.

Yet the heart I carved from from his sorrowful, milky chest,

Stayed fervent in my hands and each beat was nearly love.

I strung it upon a golden thread given to my by my mother,

The body I buried in the garden, beneath wedding beds of flowers.

Then, I returned to bed too - floor moped, tea made, a cream on.

The bed felt rather colder, larger, I’ll admit, so I let the dogs up.

The heart was cold as iron, or rust, against my chest as I lay down in our bed,

And yet, still, it drums, it drums, it drums.