Poem: Salome

When stepfathers wish you to dance,
Only severed heads will suffice

While saints still live,
Your legs lie nerveless,
Taut with agony,
And not even a Zimmer frame,
Or a wooden leg,
Will help you kick The Temple
Of The Holy Sepulchre

But inspiration arrives in incestuous demands,
And the performance of bloody ablutions

Migrainous and languorous in bed,
Your heavy lids lift to the felling
Of innumerable botched and unclean blows;
By the time spine is severed from cerebellum
Why – you almost feel you could dance!

It’s almost like magic:
The moment you hear the silver platter
Tinkle with the initiate of Golgotha,
Those palsied and nerveless pins
Leap into an ecstatic frenzy

Your servants hardly know what to do

Suddenly you are a whirlwind,
A sizzling canopy of veils,
And a staccato flash
Of your blood-anointed flesh,
Is enough to make tyrants befoul their thrones

The one great act
Of your erotic life:
Demons dance alone

 

Art By Isabel Robson Instagram: englishwomaninwales