the unicorn confection
© 1999 Devon Koren

my mane is changing red you say my eyes are turning gray
i was not screaming, sir -- you misunderstood
(understated)
that was not me you unfastened
just then --
just now.
i am not your chessmaidpiece or pawn or pretty little crumb
to decorate a shoe, a table
i see no golden bridle in your care-worn hands and sleeping fists
my petticoats refold themselves as
i fumble out of your back seat
i have a blade
and a knapsack
and five thousand, three hundred and forty-seven miles beneath my belt
still, i'm walking in your shoes
against the very stage you always said promised nothing for me
and the boys, they want to
change my name or devour me, the unicorn confection
and i don't know which is worse
take my hands, break my fingers
you were fading into stop animation and i was refusing to bleed
you alphabetized our memories and ran them through a card catalogue
you scan them in when someone wishes to check
(a piece of) me out
my lips, to prick a thimble
the age of sixteen, the cradles are empty,
but my skirts brushed against them in passing
entropy
it only takes minutes, moments, hairline fractures
and i can feel you, a fist in the stomach
some revolutions don't need triumphs
or trumpets
there are pomegranate promises that hold me here
as you rape me again and again in my sleep
my hands scream upwards
pulling that golden part of you
through my spindle
like rumplestillskin
i want straw to become currency
but these are just bodies
and the friction between could be embellished to mean
something more, to justify the kisses spent on my brow
and wasted on my throat
i am penelope, persephone, mahogany,
bathed in crimson sweat, in asphalt afterbirth
stitched together and sewn in half
a woman alone (gloriously alone)
i offer myself up
you paw at me and try to dig in
with your silver spoons and kitchen knives
it is surrender --
i bind my ankles with these white flags and
squeeze my feet small enough
to be a good wife