Escape Artist Poem by MARINA GIPPS

She would prefer not to speak
of a friend who wrote verse:
eager to live, to marry, to die.
Wed forever to the devil herself:
her friend, not her kind, who loved
many though never her own husband
(gaged as an escape device) .

A burial plot of petty tyranny:
pursuing a juggular, sweet trainwreck.
Through a window onto another state,
bedraggled, where the matrimony
was near holy yet unforgiven.
In a courthouse, makeshift bride
at other-worldly seventeen.

She would prefer not to speak
of her friend who asked once,
How do you find my sacred words?
A last lunch leaving its dead taste.
Her friend who loved many never
her own husband, stanza lover,
nor her own kind, that makeshift bride.

When words paused, her friend arose,
gaged as an escape device. Mastermind
of a never-do-well who left beds unmade
for children who fell through her spoilt
engine machinations. An unbloodied Boston,
abandoned bride, finding breath (without apology)
in deep plumes of wrought, blunderous smoke.