Salome

for Gustave Moreau

Motion is calligraphy, thought barbed wire.
Salome's dance is a hissing razor.
John coughs and chokes. Salome breathes like fire.
Her gruesome prize King Herod's awful chore.
Motion is catastrophe, thought thick salve.
Her skin burns with guilt like pus-filled blisters.
Women hold their babies, cows their white calves.
Light echoes seething on marble. It glisters.
It envelops her. For this she was born:
to stick in his throat, a sentence of mud.
Her motion calligraphy, pages torn.
Hissing viper: when she strikes it draws blood.
The brief pause of guilt. King Herod guffaws.
Salome twirls. Her thoughts are eagle's claws.