Of Whimsy
The women who line up in the foyer
are the same women who finger the glass.
Who linger in the drawing room
contemplating the mangled kitten
with its doubled body. Nothing tickles
their fancy like fortune and rot.
The children tucked at home in beds,
each perfect toe and finger. Plump
and in the porridge. After breakfast,
they hurry off to school. And this poor
thing, eight footed, unable to survive.
Double-hearted and dying of fright.
Did it scurry? Did it mew?
Did its mother feel it tethered
to the other--tiny nose, tiny spine.
It’s failure to cleave one flesh
from another. Turned over like an
hourglass, its own reflection.
The babies lost to fever, to fire.
Drowned in the river. The one with
the cloven heart that beat outside
the ribcage. Did it suffer in the cradle?
The grave? The brave mother who
wheeled the dead child down Euclid Street
for days before we knew it was gone.
Her startle when the baby didn’t move.
Didn’t cough. Didn’t open its eyes and cry.
