Ophelia's Stepsister

Ophelia's Stepsister

by Nancy Iannucci 

She was a bonnie little brunette
with wilting harebell eyes
blushing a Blake Innocence-
an innocence shared and aired
through woodwinds and strings,
inhaled in ale and bannocks
strewn together in a
whimsical, besotted
tapestry she stitched
behind stone walls.
They had their surreptitious ritual
beneath the north Romanesque window;
fragmented light slashed their bodies
in an otherwise aphotic alcove                
where he learned to kiss,
she learned to feel; two adolescents
intoxicated by fallacious spirits.
She thought he was true.
Why wouldn’t she?
He had hands so irresistibly
tender in all their stable-worn
roughness and a ginger scruff
that abraded her elegant skin
whispering tales of devotion.
She was drawn to his cyclical temperament,
his egocentric air of morose mood drifts
that begged, “figure me out. I’m so worth it
if you could just figure me out.”
He took her
downstream
with him
as if to test her,
examine her
like a suspected witch:
Will she sink or float?
She followed him willingly as
Thoreau walked deliberately
into Walden wood.
And there she will
wander in her 10' x 15'
toxic habitat until
she can decipher the
difference between
fixation and
love.  

* * *

Nancy Iannucci is a historian who teaches history and lives poetry in Troy, NY. She has always been entranced by the mysticism of life and the fine line that exists between our world and the mystical. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Three Line Poetry, Fickle Muses, Red Wolf Journal, Rose Red Review, Faerie Magazine (FB photography), Three Drops from a Cauldron, and Yellow Chair Review. She is currently working on her first chapbook.

What inspires you to write and keep writing?

Music –- nature—history:  All three are romantic, mysterious, and ethereal to eyes, ears, and mind.  I’ve always been entranced by the mysticism of life and the fine line that exists between our world and the mystical. I feel, at times, like I inhabit some place in the middle and express myself through writing trying to reconcile my own existence in between these two realms.