Can I carry on like 500 convicts, 25 to Life
Colder than ice, colder
Strap me down
How many men does it take
“You are vulgar,” they tell me

Requiem from the rivers
Sweet overflow
Dread washed in the sea
Aloes and shea couldn’t ever soften his edges

They took away my husband in chains
He used to bring me flowers that I swear
Were funeral arrangements
Perfume of camphor and
Formaldehyde
He waited too long for me to die
I out lived him
Barely

Slammed and tossed
I was free falling
He tried so hard to be a felon a thousand times over
And succeeded
Vandalizing my interior first
With his
Steady hands
Moving like an executioner

He was so precise
And kept calling for the guillotine
To roll my head
I wasted away
The antique band vowed
Enslaved me

It hung around my finger, wrist
Then my neck
I stepped out of it one day
They named me feral
Said my prayers won’t reach God

Many said he was so humble
But I saw how he was always so hungry
Insatiable
He got off easy