The Opera Stepmother
She was there for me when I came of age,
but when, for a girl of unlocked doors and
a missing father. in flight down the stairs,
an intruder pursuing, no dagger in the chamber
of non-connubial rights. "Bad dream," she said,
when summoned home from a tavern tryst
to calm her child in torn pajamas, unsafe ever after
in any man's arms. Yet, she was there for me
with the sanitary belt, its necessary napkin,
my gentle guide into the world of women,
when the blood-flower broke its bright red stain
on virginal sheets, auguring deflowering.
Her pretty clothes?--borrowed, as if
a mock stepmother in the mirror on the wall
restored my fall from the favor of our king.
Lucia, (not "di Lammermoor"), she did not stab
the bridegroom, or go mad. Blonde to my darkling
Carmen, queen to an unseated princess,
whose sleep went forty years, the prince blind-
sided, the slipper shattered, the horses
harnessed, the child become a woman,
asleep, asleep, in her glass coffin.
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