after William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus
I.
He caught my hand in my father’s garden—
closed flowers quiet in the earth,
dusk, the horizon blue
and yellow together
without mixing into green.
I wanted that,
our edges touching
without blending into one thing.
When Bassianus lifted my face to his,
kissed me, I felt the crocuses grow
curious. Later, the light
slipped out of the sky,
and though my father was gone
to war, the emperor buried,
I found I could lie awake without worry,
the familiar scent of earth
suddenly a new memory, a seed,
something upturned.
II.
Betrothed: I
kept the word in my mouth, round
as an olive, and it ripened
with thought: green,
then purple. My dark nipples
strange coins, my body treasured
and untouched—
the quiet blue vines of my blood
growing warm with light,
imagining otherwise.
III.
Like something removed
from my heart, the drums
announced my father’s arrival.
I saw the soldiers’ burden:
stretcher and stretcher of covered bodies,
my brothers wrapped in grey,
cocooned and flightless.
I rushed forward,
lifted my dress above my ankles.
And as I passed by
the tribunes and officials,
Saturninus turned his head.
I felt his eyes follow me,
let my skirts drop to the ground.
The road’s dust shapeshifted
at my feet—first one thing,
then another.