Eight: Queen’s Knight (poem)
Queen’s Knight
Be your own hero, she saw an ad say
Spritz gardenia musk in the eyes of a killer
guerilla fighter
be the windmill and the tilter
the girl of his dreams and the til we meet again
she twines a curl of hair
Are old selves bomb shelters, follicular minefields…
like tiny graves or tiny caves
Lay aside the razor, spend the loot
the too little too much
of it, on lasers
Or sneak out in mufti
Ask after Artsy
Elbow him for an introduction
Wearing her victim’s money
Wearing hat and glasses and army coat
Stubble, that waits the needle
to be burnt from its hidey-hole
silk crepe scarf, black to muffle provenance
La Perla undies
No touching the cost of her skin cream
Her choice
to disturb, be two-in-one
Bewitch even him, that frightening man
“Wow, who do you think did it?”
[drawer-knobs fiddled with] “Everything in here’s locked up so tight.”
“How is it everyone knows my business?” He gives the exotic in his office
a narrowing eye
“Artsy is a lamb, now.” [flirty finger-wag] “You’re not serious, him.”
“I’m a tolerant man, a man of God. But you, I don’t like the looks. What the hell?”
“Fine. The message-bearer will be direly serious. Does Rainy ring a bell?”
Ooh, the deed is done. She walks to her appointment
Nervous, says to her face before a darkened window
“Hey, you…killer queen. Black widow.”
Queen’s Knight
King
(2022, Stephanie Foster)