At the foot of her bones I watched

the course of her life run like spiderweb wine

and saw it all with

midnight in my eyes and

                                                                                          blood-stuffed nails I

saw everything.

 

Such as the Genesis that beget

a girlhood jinxed                                                                                                                       — Venus, virtue,

 vengeance —

 

jealous mothers casting magic through night’s void: 

             bag of dust and bones at the foot of a daughter’s bed,

fathers possessed by carnal spirits and 

evil hands.

 

An Exodus, a pilgrimage 

to the dust and dark of an unfamiliar city, a city 

with no magic, only

screaming cars and 

screaming men.

Men who, by the Easter of her life

had changed into something charmless, deformed.

             The love potion had worn off, you see, and

demons can shapeshift too.

 

Heart eaten and witness to the birth and decay of new

shrill creatures, I watched

her hair fall out 

 

                                                                                  her skeleton frame show

 

her faith, constant.

 

Convert of blood and history,

only I wavered.