sad eyed lady of the printed page

a long-limbed colt
teenage fashion queen
posing like a statue
for seventeen magazine.
dreaming of princes,
and,
white picket fences
of silken wedding scenes
and love
forever.
then,
weary mother
coldly clasped by madness
licking in love
dirty-faced children
tending the fire,
downing martinis,
to keep the love, love,
kiss him goodbye,
pack him his lunch,
to keep the lover
death
at bay.
then sweep the floor
and wash the dishes
relock the door,
and turn the switches,
to keep the ghost of her
(Sylvia)
away.
the kind-faced priest
with a phd in lunacy
swallowed your bitter secrets
buried your fears
fed you forgiveness
stuffed inside pills
you took the repentance
and threw it up
onto the page
in scrolls of anger
sunbursts of rage
palimpsests scrawled with shrills.
you were my savious
my tainted saint
when the hungry cramps
tore through my womb
in the public library
seated next to the hobo
and the retiree
i read disgusted and appalled
and yes, enthralled
the journals of
a scorned eve
burdened with
the surname
of the priest.
but it was the sex in the sexton
that tripped me up
the little catholic nun
in me pursed her lips
and felt the spasms in my
womb
reach back
to my spine
it was an old song,
what you sang,
of witches and hags
of angels and beauties,
so frightfully long
so shrill, so true, and so
wrong, wrong, wrong
sad, sad
because
like sylvia
like drunken dotty
like sweet
ophelia
you thought
of me
rats live on
you whispered
religious murmurous
palindrome
rats live on
you sang
a wicked murderous
half-dead
song
no more pain
and auld lang syne
there's no way
just read the signs
rats live on.