The Letters

With quill and silver knife

She carved a poison pen

Wrote to her lover's wife

"Your husband's seed has fed my flesh"

As if a leper's face

That tainted letter graced

The wife with choke-stone throat

Ran to the day with tear-blind eyes

Impaled on nails of ice

And raked with emerald fire

The wife with soul of snow

With steady hands begins to write

"I'm still, I need no life

To serve on boys and men

What's mine was yours is dead

I take my leave of mortal flesh"