Second Wife

I am the other, the second wife
green-eyed, I did not lie,
slither or writhe
into his life:
the exuviating snake,
lying in wait
for some juicy, helpless morsel take
with flickering tongue
and long hissing sound.

Nor diamond-jewel-eyed
lay I bewitiching
with hypnotic movement.
The eyes entrance:
swaying bellydance.

Nor call me dark,
for I am fair,
fair as wind
in saltwater air.

I listened to his song of grief
though the wrongs I could not appease
and gently traced the worried lace
embroidered deeply on his face.

I, the other, had time for offspring
when lives were harsh and unyielding,
rejected of love,  languishing they need.
Winter's scorn for springtime seed.

Discarded upon the compost heap,
I admired their colours and stooped to pluck
their elegant forms from mouldy leaves
and ruined my shoes by stepping in muck.

His children were to me
proud iris in a vase to see
by another woman conceived
discarded, neglected as dying leaves,
the unwanted life of autumn's tree.
Majestic iris they seemed to me,
royal purple, strong in vitality
and so I nutured them carefully,
myself the soil that bears no seed.

So hung I
on society's cross
between  heaven's delight
and hell's despair.

Ostracized  from social sight
beholding a fragile paper airplane's flight,
born aloft by gusting winds;
by gale in quagmire plummeting.

So by soaring high
I attracted the eye
with man's eternal desire to fly,
the unfettered falcon against the sky,
breaking  bond's of earth's restraints
to suddenly plunge into the dirt.

Caught on tempest's wind was I
between the earth and aether,
helpless to determine the projected flight
and not secured as string to kite;
but blown and tossed by currents unseen
I sailed alone without aartificial means.

I held his childish delight,
hovering ever as a springblown kite,
the dancing insect of starlight:
the dragonfly bewilders the eye, but has short life.

So touched I his soul so thin
as a damselfly alighted upon his skin,
a transparent wonder to be seen,
caught in a cobweb that love spins:
fate transfixed upon a pin.

Autumn lapis asters placed in a vase
from fields stolen cannot last.
They endure the freexing winter's chiling blast,
and reflect youth's beauty in a glass:
petals shrivelled
to be discarded at last.

Cold moon glows in the eastern sky,
blood red burns its vigilent eye,
reckoning the years that pass me by;
standing cornstalks beneath teh bitter sky;
reaped, abandoned, infertile  and useless as I—
the rich and giving second wife.

The phoenix I think
is an uncommon bird
rising to life

from the fiery byre,
lifting on wing
when all count it dead.

I go—the wind upon the sea—
ever restless seeking peace,
drifting towards eternity.
Fair I be,
fair I be
as seaside breeze.

Turning back upon my way,
bright blossoms I found with ribbon bound
a nosegay from another's wedding day.

1989