MELISSA CANNON | THE INQUISITOR’S WIFE

MELISSA CANNON | THE INQUISITOR’S WIFE

stands in the kitchen adding spice to daydreams—

wakes just before she chars the light meat dark;

lays out her silver—the studded knife—and turns

the scalloped spoon, fondles the ornate fork—

polishing each prong until it gleams.

(Careful, she whispers, hell to pay if she burns

this dinner.) Centered, the crimson candle burns

unlit, somehow recalls those dangerous dreams

devoured by a wolf whose red eye gleams

when he rode above her and her mind went dark

(Where have his hands been?). She may drop her fork

on the snow-white linen as the whole party turns

to stare. Perhaps she’ll ask if they take turns,

turning the rack. Or if his split tongue burns,

tasting the sweet flesh heavy on his fork.

And here, is this the lover of his dreams

he meets while she lies, burning, in the dark?

The taper seeps and one ruby droplet gleams,

glints like the string of bloody gems that gleams

over a shadowed cleavage: the woman turns

to him and, laughing, calls him “Lord of the Dark.”

He says, “Oh, it’s my work. The trashman burns

dead leaves and limbs the way I burn bad dreams.”

Her head rings—a pitched anvil, a tuning fork

he strikes and strikes. She watches water fork

around her folded hands, all slippery gleams,

all streams, and can’t tell waking now from dreams

or how the simplest fairy story turns—

wed to her torturer—and her flushed skin burns