You are stripped a hundred times over

and caressed hollow by cunning hands

so craftsmen can tell us they understand

the hold of the flesh,

the worth of withstanding

 

Your breasts and belly are turned to us

as landmarks of the testament,

as souvenirs on logo-stamped postcards

which ask us to spit

our wit in your mouth

 

because your screams are cemetery

silent, your skin fair and pale as

bone, your hair braided but falling like Eve

down your upright back,

hands folded to beg

 

Susanna, let me turn them to fists.

 

Shatter the gilded frame and walk where

you once kneeled, pin-up of virtue,

woman betrayed but painted unbleeding –

these jagged glass shards

will prove the real price of

 

your patience, the hauntings you held back

and choked, the curses you whispered

to gallery walls while waiting to break

like ice on the lake,

perfect and fatal

 

This is your spring, the glass your flowers.

The world outside now wakes for you.

Leave and feel favoured: we know what you'll do.

God, what we'll burn

when we're all free from cages.