DESIRED

DESIRED

-Emma Kalinowski

...the ruins of a great estate

         the lady of the manor 

                  put everything at stake

                           for the tender touch of a stable hand

and who can blame her?

Her child

         taken from her

                  the lunatic asylum

                           her home

                                    her price

the sumptuous

         scornful

                  masochistic torture

                           we call  desire

catlike, it pads up and down

                  the perimeter of our lives

                           and

to make room for it

         child

                   husband

                           status

                                    reason must go

It is never happy,

         only triumphant

                  it destroys

When it moves on

         loneliness reveals its ruin

                  and we are left cold and shaking