THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY Poem by Jane Yeh

You don't return my calls. In a month of missing days
Everything thwarts me, even the curls of my hair freeze;

My skin sheds, leaving flakes on my wool sweater. We are erratic
Both, changing with the weather, but you think of it

As an astronomical progression. Last year you called me
Your little sunflower. Eleven blizzards later I think of how

To get you: calculating mercury, sighting along constellations,
Rehearsing the lines of a paid assassin—not know me, my Lord?

You cannot choose! I bide time,
Hoarse-tongued and blue as poison, the double

Line of my eyes gone to slits. I hate like a tooth hurts,
At the root. I will startle the bones

From their sockets, they will crack like glass
And catch in your throat. I will dazzle

Your heart from its cage. The lungs will knock and clap
Together in the empty place. The applause will make you rattle