Epithalamion

Three weeks in, the masked man whispered,

Let me disfigure you gently, as he knelt

by her bed. She seemed to nod while she dreamt.

He gathered his tools from a pouch:

chisels, dull knives, gag and stirrups,

barbs, ninja stars, tools for working leather.

Slowly, he began to skive the v of her throat,

prick her breasts till they bled, and the room

filled with ghosts and not-ghosts of children

who were, or who never would live.

They hummed in a taffy light around her head.

“You must be the devil,” she wanted to say, or said.

He chuckled a bit, shucking the skin

like an old stocking from her leg, sanding raw

her forearms. “I can’t see my hands,” she whispered,

“or read small print. You don’t exist.” He laughed

again, buckling her in two. She heard herself split

like melon, too-ripe strawberry, sweet, dark fruit,

dripping down to the hard arch of her cramped foot.

Her mother’s voice warned, “Always keep things clean.”

But now he caressed the fine skin of her face

with a tingling. His fingers dipped and traced,

left the taste of burnt sugar. When she turned

to look, he was gone. Instead, in his place,

lay her beautiful husband, lips parted

sleeping with a blind man’s outstretched arms.