To Marie Antoinette, from a Woman Who Favored the Look of a Sparse Room
Kelly R Samuels
Not to say your style didn’t have worth, yet –
Rattle of
glass and crystal.
Swirl of.
Scroll of.
Tired eye.
Not a blank wall
anywhere for the light
to make its way.
Here’s a mirror. Here’s a mirror. Here’s a mirror. Here’s a mirror.
Window. Window. Window. Window.
And the gilded.
And the carved.
And the jeweled
encrusted
Later: the bed
and a chair.
The brush
to do your hair.
The one pillow.
No blade.
And you sighing.
Kelly R. Samuels is a Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, as well as the author of two chapbooks: Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line). Her poems have recently appeared in RHINO, Cold Mountain Review, DMQ Review, The Pinch, and Quiddity. She lives in the Upper Midwest.