Study Of Slyvia In Blue

Before you place your head
in the oven, hair falling about your neck
like a platinum scarf
you stare at the burner,

blue garland of flames
rising to serve you.

Blue spark, blue wish
blown into Winter's heat,
you think of the tinder box --
the magic fire, the giant dog;

only in your world
it would be a cat
with a clean mouth
and fierce claw
springing from the yew tree
to grant this dark boon,

to cast out the girl
haunting your husband's hour glass.
Her slender neck
slips through his hands
turning plain seconds
into bliss, sweet time
she has stolen from from you.

Unlike the soldier
chambered in the blue
forest at twilight,
you need only one wish
to escape death.

Two more
would seem greedy
when you humbly crave
your bridegroom's troth,

his gaze
loving an eyebrow
as much as the lapwing's crest,

his hands
pulling your head back
from this gas cavern, from the edge
of madness, the moon's bleached
hood of bone.

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Note -- The painting is called, "Blue Eyes" by artist, Linda Bergkvist, more of
her work can be viewed here, http://www.furiae.com/index.php?view=gallery.