With quill and silver knife

She carved a poison pen

Wrote to her lover's wife:

"Your husband's seed has fed my flesh".



As if a leper's face

That tainted letter graced

The wife with choke-stone throat

Ran to the day with tear-blind eyes.





Impaled on nails of ice

And raked with emerald fire

The wife with soul of snow

With steady hands begins to write:



"I'm still, I need no life

To serve on boys and men

What's mine was yours is dead

I take my leave of mortal flesh"