The Alchemist

I thought I’d write this quadrille (prompt word “magnet”) in anticipation of Halloween with its cornucopia of bat wings and eerie skeletal thrills. Quadrille Monday at dVerse limits each offering to 44 words, so be warned!

She walks in a drysalter’s den
wearing death, her subfusc,
scattering acedia’s magnetic coils,
like iron filings shot hard
against fate’s blind eyes,
their littoral currents crashing
against her noon day commerce
of herbs, bone dust, pharmacopeia,
against concinnity escaping
fruitless desire, skulking caitiff.

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Lady Lavender in Extremis

Foxglove in a Washington, DC garden

She came sailing in —
foxgloves in murder digitalis
shape-shifters in book-covered heat
an Austen novel in her head
pharmacopœia of bottled lust
in everyone else’s closet Gothic
unholstered in a room of Macbeths
unshriven, exhumed desire
— sailing in, lighting torches
blanketed fire,
lavender swan.

Merril's Quadrille #113: "Blanket Us" for dVerse
A dVerse quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words. 
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