Ed Taylor

PSYCHE'S SISTERS

At night he comes, "to perform a husband's duty,"
demands darkness, slinks away at sunrise,
doesn't even say a name; that's nuts.
You out of your skull? A palace and fountains of Chianti,
okay, but what he does for a living quien sabe?
Psyche, we love you, but blood tests? Pre-nup?
Power of attorney?
                    My every wish lives in him, gentle,
                    tender, my body's delight. On clouds we couch,
                    his voice weaving wondrous tales, and I love him
                    as husband.
Psyche, Psyche, we want you happy,
but maybe there's a bad tattoo with Lorraine Lourdes
and Rita already bleached off, and a face to make
a squirrel spit up. Fresh from an Attica tunnel?
Why else the hiding?
                    It is a matter of faith.   
                    Hello, earth to Psyche?
Baby, for our sake, play it safe -- while he sleeps,
with this candle, peek, and here, take Mace in case . . .
                    Hot wax on his golden shoulder. He woke,
                                          left me. 
                    Love, he said, cannot live without trust. He
                                          had wings.
See, see? Didn't we say he was a freak?

Location:	Buffalo, New York
Email:	etonline@localnet.com
Publications:	5_Trope, Realpoetik, Exquisite Corpse, The Quarterly, Ontario Review

- November 2002 - Sonnet for a Blue Spinet What's In a Worm? The Haunted House Sunday Afternoon Fever Rain Hula at Anini Beach How to Build A Man Dancing With A Penis Balances Bell's Palsy Strikes the Dwarf's Mother when we were little Alternatives to Cigarettes Dead Meat '69 Psyche's Sisters Choregasm - Stirring's Best Prose - Autumn Rain Light Fingers Shattered Balm The Grassfires of the Resistance The Screamer; After a Portrait by Munch