Sign up to EliteSkills

Sylvia, Sylvia,
a forest souled root
to trip my foot
in its dormancy;
life inert and rising from the soil.
when with one last glance
your eye recorded camera-like
that blade of grass, that leaf
to you, it must have seemed immortal.

you took only that,
and moth-breath, left behind
a final treat inside your hearth
for your man, for your man,
left it to cool in the oven.
tell me why would you believe he'd deserved that?

he didn't need fists, his words were his fists
but clumsier than yours by far.
last word, witty girl,
let him talk all he wants.

did you choke? did you cough?
did you sleep, sleep, sleep?
they vandelized your grave again.

the women come with chisels
like surgeons they harvest the tumor of his name.
those women on their knees
before you paying homage
to you Our Lady of the Viper- Man,

man with his open hands of greed,
philandering suicide tongue
with his cold cobra's kiss,
did his fingers close your eyes?
they closed hers, too, you know.
you never asked for that.

he left a lethal trail
like any man
surefooted as a satyr
he clears the root, he clears the root.
and only women will stumble.

i am a Dryad at the cross roads,
paper-voiced, ink-tongued,
your venom, thick and sweet as molasses
in my mouth,
digging up the root
digging up the root.
give me you mandrakes, sister,
i've need of them.