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Le Cri de Mélusine

      after a French folk tale

 

If you had only listened, Raymond,

and not bowed to convention,

impatient husband with no imagination,

now most cursed in tout le monde.

 

Six days a week I was the perfect wife and mother.

Couldn't you respect my one wild day?

My bath where I flipped my fish tail (outré !)

was sacred, till you peeked, gaped at The Other.

 

Over our village I fly, a wingèd serpent,

circling three times, sobbing a woman's grief.

I will leave forever. Our family life was brief.

Children, I'll always care but I won't repent.

 

 

        --Karen Braucher

        from Aqua Curves (NFSPS Press, copyright 2005),

        also published in the new renaissance

 

 

Click here to see a painting of Mélusine.

 

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