THE WEAVE:

Lucy and Lilith play footsie in court.

Mars is playing judge, “Okay,

you two, just tell me

what’s going on.”

Lilith speaks…

"'The Unlovable
Woman,' he keeps
asserting.  He believes

I am the Unlovable
Woman.  He says it,
out loud, because he hopes

I will receive 
his transmission,
from the throne

where he sits.
On the right, his wife.
On the left, his PhD.

A decade of over
-analyzing me, attentively,
lovingly -like a gardener

tends a tree, that will one 
day, bear fruit, he wants 
to eat.  He whispered half-truths 

to the buds, in me.  
'You are safe here,
to unfold,' was the tale 

we wove together.  But, 
when he bit the spineless 
fruit, that I, to him presented, 

 true, he spit me out.  
 With bits of peach, 
stuck in his teeth,

he tells me, constantly,
of the role he has cast
for me, 'You are, 

The Unlovable 
Woman.' And he hopes, 
one day, he can stop

eating me."