By Crystal Stone
Her husband enlisted: eager to fight,
eager to serve. She was a good wife,
accepted this. She could argue, but why
fight? The last night the sun set pale
in their wine by the garden. The last
kiss was fragile—lips thin and chapped
with goodbyes. In his absence, she bathed
behind a wickerwork screen, enjoyed
the iridescent rainbows of shampoo bubbles,
the way soft light manicured her nails,
the curl of toes beneath hot water,
the volume of hair as humidity twirled
fingers around her loose locks. The king
would watch from the roof, share this private
moment with her. If the rainbow is god’s
promise to never flood the earth again,
why not her eyes, too? Or her body?
When a king calls, what can a servant do
but wait, for the coming to hang her
stomach in effigy of the life she once had
and the child to rip her sharply, as if only
worn fabric of her newly retired silk gown?
Crystal Stone is a first-year MFA candidate at Iowa State University. Her work has previously appeared in The Badlands Review, Green Blotter, North Central Review, Jet Fuel Review, Southword Journal Online and Dylan Days. When she’s not writing poems, you can find her on her roller skates blocking for Team United Roller Derby.
Photo credit: Image of Jean-Leon Gerome’s Bathsheba from Wikiart via a Creative Commons license.
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