Bluebeard's First Wife
by Sarah Colona
Parchment moths and silverfish bristle Into your mirrored cabinet. Delicate acrobats, they Dust epitaphs from Rx jars: Salve as black as his heart. My little spies Report one shelf cleared, Save the rust circle Where shaving cream Sat without purpose While its razor nicked Our monogram into my thigh Then forever made him a widower. I am pleased The insects visit me. To them I am A walled garden. Once sustenance: Glut and rot. Now, you wear my ring, little girl — As six sisters before you. But aren't you clever To claw his bouquet of keys. To see the sinister gift Others could not. In our first weeks, he Fed me sonnets, nectarines, Peppered rare steaks. I read only the future he intended And praised his lengthening whiskers: The shadows found there.
Sarah Colona lives in New Jersey, where she is an English Lecturer at Burlington County College. Her chapbook of poems, Thimbles, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Her favorite fruit is the Royal Gala apple.
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