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--- M E L A N I E   B O G U E


The trellis is shaking with guards as the curtain opens:

Despite the lost battle, the queen accepts the knight without question.

He lifts up the saliva-blue sheet, as if unwrapping gauze.

He watches her legs rub together. "Take these butter knives," she says.

He drops his forget-me-not cloak over the bed and prunes his beard.

She can't believe it's so hard to fool disappointment

as they crush the bedstraw mattress and she opens her mouth

full of jewelweed and marriage.

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