Natalie Louise Tombasco
there is an etiquette to regicide, drawn-out
as a five-act play. insert fish hooks and drag
off stage. lady macbeth bought the bodega
tulips herself, a country house upstate herself,
wrote the book on being a good hostess; the ideal
host body like a vase, stripped, for the holy ghost.
dark ladies fasten into the skin of blitzed debutantes,
contemplate upon calculated offerings: singsongs,
brass candlesticks, linzer tarts. scrub hands clean
of redcurrant and beguile the charcuterie board.
for anti-mother, the velvet cushion is most apt
to smother out any hope of being sold as blackacre.
iron the festive tablecloth and spread out ambition
like silverware (knocks)—hark! our guest is here.