The neighbour women's best casseroles
adorn the table; black crepe and vases —
calla lilies, never bought when you lived here.
There are few young widowers in the hilly lands:
he feels no want. Covered dishes stream in.
He washes them, returns them — shy — himself.
They find that charming — poor man, careful-fingered
whose hands must be turned to covered dishes, to wash.
You have lost your beauty. It happens to the dead.
Well water rots eyes, crossroads wear down feet
to nubbins, to knees, to invisible rags. Your
clothing suffers. Your complexion, likewise.
The neighbour women's best casseroles
adorn the table, and calla lilies.
They visit. Afternoons, tea in seashell cups
gifted on your wedding day. They sip between
sympathy-sighs; ward evil when they say your name.
The dead are monsters; that happens to the dead
in their broken fury, in their impotence:
poison eye-blinded, or drowned and mad.
They speak your name. He meets their eyes.
His hands are quiet. He does not look away.
The dead are monsters; once, you had a house
and drank tea from seashell-cups, afternoons
and made casseroles, in covered dishes, and
turned your hands to them to wash.
There were no calla lilies, white as shrouds.
You had a husband with quiet hands;
he took you down to the river.
The dead are monsters. Necessity provides.
You have lost your beauty, and you have grown claws.
Leah Bobet lives in Toronto, where she works in Canada's oldest science fiction bookstore and has just completed a degree in linguistics. Her fiction has appeared recently in Strange Horizons, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy, and On Spec, and her poetry has been nominated for the Rhysling and Pushcart Prizes. She is working on a novel about a girl with bee wings and a boy who grew up underground.