The Chambermaid

It was a long trip from the city

and leaving metropolis behind

fell harder from her shoulders

as she walked with pack and gown

on the dusty road leading to the

village. Her chariot had not come

nor had she money to pay for another,

yet this village before her grew over

the hill, and she descended in the valley

her footsteps breaking rocks.

 

Their faces were like the escarpments

in the fall by the village, and the villagers’

stares cut like rocks on a knee tripped to

the road. Their mutters quiet paid attention

to the shops and exchanges on the streets,

so she interrupted a lone man staring over

her shoulder to a haggling vendor, and he took

his hand from his chin and elbow from the barrel

and he said, “come with me.” She followed him as

he turned to his left and continued with her right

down the street, turning left, and then turning right,

when she was anxious, when she knew not where he

took her, and there was a house made of oak, stained

with black weathering, vines crawling across the balcony

and the porch’s pillars upholding it. They climbed the few

steps and he knocked for her. She observed the steps behind

her, and how they creaked, and regarded this with comfortable doubt.

 

A man opened the door.

He looked on her with a sullen

glance, then to the man who brought

her, and thanked him for bringing the girl.

They entered the foyer, leaving the stranger

to find his way from the estate beyond the door,

and it was dark where they circled, as few candles

were lit, touring the mansion, perusing its trim.

There was an ineffable sulk about the home,

making her muscles tighten in her blouse,

and she spoke lightly, as he showed her the

room she would be staying in,

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

 

Dusting the mansion was a breeze,

and the sulk began to loosen

from the walls and the ceiling,

and she would call him by his name

because there was no need for titles,

she simply lived there, and did her chores,

which were really his, but she was poor

and needed something other to explore

than the mind of mine and yours.

She took a trip to the Caribbean when

he died, and thought nothing of drowning

when the pressure suck loosed her eyes

from their sockets, because the kraken

swallowed every bit of skull she had had.

Bad floats the question past the sullen

Gaze martyrs time null if eyed at all.