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 | New poems by Madison Cawein |  |
VINDICATION
Here is a tale for gossips and chaste people:There lived a woman once, a straight-laced lady,
Whose only love was slander. Nothing shady
Escaped her vulture eye. Like some prim steeple
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And woe unto the sinner, girl or woman,
Whom love undid.—She was their fiercest foeman.
No circumstance excused. Misfortune, never. ...
As she had lived she died. The mourners gathered:
Parson and preacher, this one and another,
And many gossips of most proper carriage.
Her will was read. And then ... a child was fathered.
Fat Lechery had his day. ... She'd been a mother.
A man was heir. ... There'd never been a marriage.
| New poems by Madison Cawein | |