PoetryEtc Featured Poet: Liz Kirby

Dirty mother who fingered greatness,
slovenly queen filthy hair piled high,
great bass voiced woman who boomed
the rings on her fingers heavy as gypsy gold.
She knew how to keep a king in his bed all the morning
when to lift a finger, where the nub of pleasure lay,
when breathing might become a gift of ease.

She screeched and cackled. Thudded ungainly
out of the throne room. Another black stout disgorged
from the lips of the queen, her mouth slack and wet.
She wore decay around the hem of her skirts,
sleeves of raggy black lace, strings of rotting pearls.
There should be a route through the maze she thought
there should be ways through the eaten away passages.