She slipped upon the yawning dawn
The moment the words did leave his mouth.

“Beauty, dear, lovely, dear—but I must
say goodbye.”

Carved among the many hearts that
Fashion these women, like
Creeping lines of garish romance,
Carved her heart, they would think,
From stone—
The men who scorn and thus scorned
Is a woman left to bleed alone.

Reevaluate, recalculate, reset
Her course to speedy inaction
Of complete baffled pain.
What?

These fingers, and these hands, and
Yet this heart, and these feet that
Have to yet carry her among
The others, the others, the others
She will see.

(laughing, kissing, sighing—)

She’s missing upon the lost items
In the contents of drawers—like
The piece of a broken heart
That’s just sheltered with words,
Which tried to disable it’s alarming hurt.

“So what can I do—what can I do?
To change the course of life, of love?”

And this was whispered, as all is whispered,
Behind the fair hand cased in silken glove—
But peach of cheek and bite of tongue—
Of roses darkened and dead—
Of the solitude left to mend, to mend,
To mend—

So what can she do—what can she do?
To change the course of life, of love?

To see him bleed, to feel, to care.
To see the gods strip him bare.
To help with delicate progress
The end of his happiness.

“For he shall not love, nor feel, nor
Kiss while my heart is searing,
bearing the scars—”

She takes a seat on the divan,
Dark hair unbound and limp,
The window glowing in the moonlight’s
Sinister grip—and as she idly swashes
The slinking wine—thick and bitter—
Her smile delivers the words for her
Intent.

Tears retrace their crawling steps up
Her face, a glassy heart that knows how
Best to break—

For a woman scorned is a woman
Honed in the fires of revenge.