Midnight.gif)
by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
I know she dreams of ashes,
her fingers scrabbling at
our silken sheets,
and drawing down-filled
satin quilts up to her chin,
as though, despite them all,
despite the logs our servants
heap upon the fire,
she can't get warm.
And when she bathes
in milk and scent,
and dresses in her velvet gowns,
I see her raise her hands
to hide her face,
and search about for dust
to smudge her skin,
and blur her features
from my sight.
And I? I try hard
not to blame her,
not to hold deceptions
someone else once wove
to cloud my mind,
and win my heart and hand,
against a girl who
used to dream of
magic and of fairy tales.
But on a shelf, displayed
against a brocade drape,
a casket holds her slipper shards,
my one concession to
the anger of our wedding night,
when midnight struck,
and she was left, unglamored,
longing for the warmth
of dying cinders over
cooling, dying love.
Marcie is
an Aurora Award winning poet/writer from the west coast of Canada, and her work has appeared in such publications as Weird Tales, On Spec, Aeon, and Mythic Delirium.
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