Paul
atten Ash

                 I am the daubed bride, a storm-drubbed girl, equivocal,

                 a-quiver, a blur of hands, howling into the bruised sky,

                 this Åsgårdstrand night—a seethe of pre-coital thunder,

                 its mad chorus of maidens leading me away from light,

                 away from the forced commensality of unbidden guests,

                 a ghost threnody calling me North, the edge of nothing.

                 Deeper I drown, down into darkness, these fjord waters

                 welling up their black oil into me, my pretty insides dusk,

                 a scream of trees, my smudged sex hexed, I am the wind

                 rattling the pane, all brackish-lipped and tidal-wide, cold

                 as the depths of the Fold, robed in ice, a benighted virgin,

                 I shiver out of the canvas—I alone, doomed to go down.