Now on the ledge where she had proffered
Crumbs of her wedding and first delight,
Sparrows screamed of penal fire
To her breasts drained dry, her bloodless lips,
The wraith of her hair. Back of the wainscot
Blue mice skeltered across the abyss
Of a house which was shut to her egress,
So faint was her hand to lift the latch
Between her and streets of shallow sunlight.
Poor lady! Attuned to the delicate
Gleam of mirrors and stemmed glasses starring
A sea of candlelight where laughter
Was fluted and whorled, now she saw
Armies of shadows crossing a wall,
She heard the crow-feathered planets cawing
With each slow bell from a rusted clock,
And she was startled. Globed was her body
Once, in lesser Odysseys
A storm with calm of the lily’s cup;
But parched as dry leaves burning, colder
Than the brittle bough that is hung with snow,
She stood transfixed in a hollow house
Where no footfalls disturbed the dust,
A ghost suspicious of a moth.
Milton’s Wife
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