They burned the bed. My bride stumbles
from the ashes, diamond eyes
as torches in coal-feathered features.
They took those too. Through the holes
where irises once gleamed
I hear the children set alight,
screams bright. Smoke-
swallowed into ships. Their cries
echo round my sockets,
singeing the white night. Already stung
with the women’s hoarse lament;
my mother’s throat lost
in the throng of voices. Already burned,
her child a torch. Dropped from the battlements
like kindling. I coffin the little body
in my son’s shield, wedding robes
to quench the heat. Feel
the warmth of deadened fingers
through the sheets. And the air
thick with heat. Skin red like a slave’s.
My next husband will be toil,
blackened hand
already pressed into his. I will sweat
with him til my skin bursts. All is flames
Cassandra. No need to cast the world with fire.
Release the torch and quiet
your grasping prophecies. Don’t you know
they stole your eyes?