Alex Schramm

Behind Palace Doors

They’re smiling…

But it’s that near hysteric acceptance of fate.

Their feline bodies pressed flat to the wall,

Sweating cold and barely dressed,

Their mistress shrieks as if giving labor, eyes inflamed-

And her maidens know, insane.

They, bound in life and death to some queen,

About whom everyone murmurs goddess

Except for them-

After years of watching her manic weeping and tearing at her lungs,

And at those weakest points-

That hoarse screaming while drunk, those heartbreaks,

That bled over every inch of the palace they are confined in.

They rub her anointed shoulders and coo lies which sound like comfort,

As gold and sapphires sparkle in her hair with each tearful tremble.

Behind corridors and locked doors the maidens stifle her memories-

By somehow jerking awake in her arms.

May they now present before the people:

Their goddess,

Who will stride gracefully

(In the afterglow her latest attempted suicide).

Another bitter victory her maidens scrounged-

To stay alive themselves.