Hearse

Martha Zweig

                                      after William Blake

Oops, hit the skid rind, cruel world
slipped a corkscrewy peel
of it’s-about-time.

Spirits high, royalty flung itself wide
open upon its own unhinges & by a splinter
of chance that night I rose, my first foot

received into a golden glassyeyed
slingback pump, slick as princeling himself & the moon\
by its half & half-
again measures recalculating what brass
tarnish or shine
he & his might take to me & mine.

Heels, toes, how didn’t both poor stepsisters flail
tipsy & lose
their balances, bloody-shod & blind!

Remember the cornfield listening?– nick
of the worm in the rolypoly
pumpkin’s undercarriage?

Sooner or later a watched
wedding boils.

Martha Zweig is a poet who lives in Vermont. Her collections include Get Lost, Monkey Lightning, What Kind, Vinegar Bone, A Skirmish of Harks, and Powers. A recipient of the Hopwood and Whiting awards, she worked for ten years in a pajama factory, including a term as ILGWU shop chair, and ten years as an advocate for seniors.
Originally published:
April 1, 2018

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