by Devon Balwit
Unlike Abigail, I wouldn’t have made it
past the scullery. The first caustic prank
would’ve undone me. I would never think
to steal a horse and ride for herbs, unfit
for such machinations. Pushed and tripped
by courtiers, I’d have shrunk to rabbit stature,
nose aquiver, precisely when a vicious nature
would serve me better. A gun lifted and fired
point-blank at my midsection would’ve sent
me scurrying to the alleyways to a whore’s life—
forget corsets, pineapples, and assignations.
But this Machiavellian she could plumb intent
and flummox the devious, energized by strife.
So brutes ascend, while the meek tender resignations.
Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Fifth Wednesday (on-line), Apt, Grist, and Oxidant Engine among others.
