Black Widow


She undresses nightly to owl hoots
and wind chimes.
Perfumed and breathless,
she opens her arms to a new lover,
old ones drained and scattered--
dried leaves in her wake.
They've finally returned to tired wives
waiting, or empty apartments with beds
they can no longer bear to sleep in.

Her yard is littered with crumpled love poems.
It glows with spilt blood.

She spins silken tales for this new love,
weaves him closer with each word,
her talons still hidden, demeanor as meek
as a coward's shadow.

He's a dead man walking, but
nobody's told him yet.



Pris Campbell
©2006



Art: The Once and Future King in Appleland I
by Elena Retfalvi. Click HERE to visit her site.
 copyrighted and used with permission

One of my favorite artists, Elena Retfalvi lives in the U.K. She has exhibited her work all over the world. One of her goals is to demonstrate the ambiguity and dissonance of feelings in her art.


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