Goodwife Receives a Caller         

by Devon Balwit

Why such a long face, my dear?

            Because marriage is meat I no longer stomach.

Then why stay, my dear?

            Because my shoes are hung out of reach,

            and the woods run with dogs, fierce and famished.

Why not feed them, my dear? Your body is fashioned in pieces, and not all equal.

            Because the knives have been locked away with anything bladed.

What of your teeth, my dear, the sharp scythes of the mighty masseter?

            Because I’m afraid of pain and aiding my maiming;

            I remember our courtship when my mouth was used otherwise.

Then I wish you luck, my sweet, in your choosing, in your chamber as small as a bean.

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Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements (Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Noble Gas Quarterly; Muse A/Journal, and more.