Betrothed

Dapper youths avoid me.
No blame. Four knuckles
Top four rings on

My anchor arm.
If repellent then I succeed
In tribute to my betrothed.

How romantic, one may
Think, to wed and bed
A being met in childhood.

Strange husbands. Each more
Virulent than the next. The
First I found in my blood,

In the mitts of a white coat.
He over time gained size
Gained speed, whip-quick.

He greets me at our front door
With his red face red eyes smiling.
I am a missile and he never leaves my side.

An organ wailing used to stir
A brew, aversion to stigma
Until I met Husband Two

I do not do the “hush hush”
My catholic cogs tell me to.
He throws a bulls-eye on every thing
And paints my nakedness with fire.

Man made of matches, my
Second husband. I know
He’s groped you too.

He planted the slicing eye
In yours and mine.
Sprouting unconcealable crease.

The Third I've often seen
Crouching in moonless hedges.
My skin still soft he

Wriggled up to me. Serpentine.
Coiled a question mark
A wheat reaper head.

He bolts my feet to floors
In rooms where thousands of doors
Would willingly swallow me
Husband number three.

Piled on a twin mattress we
Make love ironically.
A heaving mass of sparking clay

A gasp I am a male mother
And I propose to the bred dead
Thing in me, the

Rancid Oedipus so
Sickly green. Kiss after kiss.
Who should question this polygamy?


-BENJAMIN SMITH