Lady M by Yusuf Akman

By muttering “the world is a parasomniac stage,” 
then sleepwalking through it with a dagger, 
you became this ekphrastic freak, 
what they call 
the untranslation of Lady Macbeth.
 
It was one of these Walpurgisnachts
that you had to wear
washed-up peach colored socks
before giving a soliloquy behind
your rain dripping marble sill:
 
 “It’s the witching hour,” you said, 
though it was the hour of the witch 
in which you single-handedly mimed 
the singular handle of the faucet;
opened but forgot to close – 
and the sibilant Tay
overdubbed the water flow.
 
You didn’t mind the laughs of 
a murder of the swans
that mocked you 
for having a damned spot, 
man-sized. 
 
because you knew goddamn well 
(but haven’t internalized yet) 
that forms were not to be earned 
but to be made peace with – 
 
and 
swans can’t afford a war.
 
so spit the moondust 
stuck in your throat 
then 
dream to soar:
 
three witches 
with prosthetic jaws,
hanging in 
the Adam’s apple of the sky – 
 
go wash this world unsexed 
with gasoline
before asking 
your smear-mongering audience
a round of applause.
 
three matches 
left in the box – 
 
who are you threatening 
exactly with burning
to the ground in a strike,
My Lady?