The moor at dusk’s fade,
Bats about the moon,
The glow a sickly green shade,
Smudging over castle ruins.
Damp ground slurping recent rain,
Mist snaking out from trees,
Fear coats my throat as blood drains,
Noting a cloaked figure approaching me.
The hood shifts and I sight red eyes,
A wily smile that would shame the devil.
Sheets of mauve clouds drift along the skies,
The blackout blinding me, path tilting unlevel.
The moon rented space to shine through,
The bony hand reaching from black drapes to my pale throat,
Then traced down my skin, my lips turning blue,
As he wrenched me forward into a small dark boat.
The hull seemed to have risen from below
For water poured off all sides.
He gripped the oars and started to row,
Paddles gulping the whole ride.
Suddenly, an island I didn’t know of rose,
The mist splitting around a single spiny tree.
He shoved me ashore to see the tree up close--
Face to face with an apple of the truest ruby.
All other colors I’d ever known paling
As I reached out to caress the fruit,
Mouth-watering, I let my teeth sink in, unveiling
In my mind, a knowledge as I couldn’t compute.
I woke on the moors, dew mixed with sweat,
A cool chill filling my bloodless body.
Still feeling faint, I tried to upward get,
The apple’s fleshy core tumbling off me.
I pried myself up from dream
Head pounding in exertion.
She appeared before me—her scheme
Dependent on my failed desertion.
A cool cloth at my forehead,
Her visceral clawing tucking in covers.
Prisoner I was to the bed,
Now understanding the fates of her late lovers.
Poison spoon fed to my dry lips
So hallucination illuminated vision’s lens,
Cheek flinching from her tracing fingertip,
Body emaciated as her intent.
Desperate—I tried to fight,
Her mighty words knocking me down,
Placating sweetness shying away her contrite.
Under gaslit madness, I readied myself to drown.
Then miracle, the ghosts gathered at my bedside
The once-brides of my jailor keeping me at death’s brink.
With heavens help, they before her materialized,
And on her knees, she did sink.
The poison seeped from dropped bottle,
An anguished cry thrust against her chest,
In retribution, ghosts swarmed in full throttle,
Sending her to her hellish rest.
Slow I was to regain life’s fervor,
The madness lingering for days.
Though I thought the terror to be over,
The ghosts lingered laughing at hallucination’s haze.
When the dying state let loose its fetters
And vibrant dreams were replaced with sweet sleep,
My mind saw the true scene better
And hands bloody from her, did I weep.
The bruising on her porcelain neck,
The spilled broth on the rug,
Her past lovers talking to officers on the back deck,
A blood-curdling understanding I couldn’t shrug.
She haunts her late lover’s grave,
Lies on earth above his eternal sleep,
And unlike the flower-crowned widows,
She never blots her eyes to weep.
When the sun rests in horizon’s grave
And streetlights kiss rain caught between stone,
You may glance quick at the cliffside’s keep,
To see that she does not lie alone.