I am made of gossamer
and powdered blue,
blown easily as
glass in heat.
My feet ache, but they’re
still light as porcelain.
It’s better than
eating ash
and choking on
maggoted bread,
water gone gray
with spores.
Now, I eat orange cakes
with cream dollops
and lay on silk sheets to
wait for his scent:
game and smoke and blood.
I think of my sisters
with their
bloody stumps and
beak-torn sockets.
His hand strokes the arch of
my foot as he talks of
princely sport and I
eat and eat of him.