Susan terris
Take Two: Star-Crossed/ Assia Wevill & Ted Hughes
Jeanne Bessette
chemistry fuck without restraint but between us
omens she mad phantom haunts our grounds
babies she hell-bent makes all babes pay
oven gas now we in his house his children
his bed-by-seven rules yes you vamp [flashback]
less fetching in pinnies shrew who taunts uses
her dishes makes her tomato-soup cake portents
her sewing basket even her dressing/undressing
gown the color of sin owl's cry he makes me
cook and sea witch no nod to my work and no
wedding ring cock o' the walk he pecks me
to submit dung beetle too easy old slag
needy half-yenta queen greedy for more extreme
[long shot] oh you mister-led-by-his cock makes
my words like hers pour like wet mud how
you say Ass-ia you who only half-admit our child
murderer Assia says philanderer well biddy
only Brenda and Carol and forever in my face her
Sylvia no Ted you whom she dubs little man in ours
but we shall punish [fade in] daughter and I will mock
all who love Sylvia gas gas oven for us two too
Take Two: Black Jack / Bramwell Bronte & His Drinking Mug
is it my carrot top or the pale sisters painted
yet myself removed turned into a sloe-eyed pillar
since I am not quite real crave gin and poppies
Black Jack for sleep sin-steeped set my bed afire
for I lust keen to peel off their gossamer collars
[blow-up] unhook denude taste cherries
and Black Jack hidden down there Anne in
a book-lined study a heathered heath for Emily
then for Charlotte my Charlotte castles in Angria
I the intruder am ill enslaved by the unreal
what I want to die standing up like my pillar
but even more [climax] true friend to Bramwell
Brontë I want Black Jack mine theirs
and that sodding poppy sweet canker-rose of Lethe
Take Two: Royal Pain / Duke & Duchess of Windsor
once upon a time she whispers there was a girl
named Goldilocks then he says who went for a walk in
the woods [splice] La Caravelle champagne paté
I still love you he says Ditto dear she murmurs
but you and I create only disaster together so then
he says his entrée is woefully underdone [filter]
long wordless silence they are being watched
crimping a small rosy kerchief he blows
his nose more silence [slow-mo] she leans in so
no one can hear and Goldilocks said this porridge
is too cold the Duke of Windsor squares
his shoulders replies but this one is just right
so I shall eat it all the Duchess reaches for his hand
finis she says we may have love [block] but there's
nothing my darling worse than outliving romance
Susan Terris’ most recent books are Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn Publishing, Fall 2017), Memos (Omnidawn Publishing), and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk Press). She is the author of 6 books of poetry, 16 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and one play. Journal publications include The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, Georgia Review, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers from Field appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos was in Best American Poetry 2015. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and is a poetry editor of Pedestal Magazine.