Ink, Water, Metal, Hamlet
Stephanie Upton
You Ophelia
My Ophelia
You weren't meant to be so pretty
Standing there walking into a madness
Into a madness like bleeding ink
Into a lake which has spread out before you
Pulled from murky plastic tubes
I let the black ripples move
I let them seep through the shoreline where you walk
You walk like a stalk of papyrus
My Ophelia thin as a reed
Madness warms you
Madness heats you through the gray fiber of a thin slip
A thin gray slip that could be the underwear under a nuns habit
A small strip of lace on your tense leg is all that shows your heat
You're thin as a cat tail Ophelia
And the cat tails beside you are ragged strokes of rust
The same burnt umber forms the swarm of gnats
That fell from a broken pen
To circle your mad head
You're face is six lines set at angles
The madness you clutch in both fists is toxic lilies
And the lily venom looks out from your angled eyes
Through your dark hair
Toward the surface of a lake murky with rust.
