Ever After

by Erin Bealmear

Published June 1st, 1998

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The curse. I often wonder, if it has finally died.
But no, like a dog fucking another dog it won’t let go.
Licking the quiet sounds that come through me like an untamed
beast. Like never being young. Like all the ones before.
Hedda Lister’s choking, choking, choking until her gasps flee
leaving a piece of flesh lodged in her throat.
Her hair, long and red. Strawberry Shortcake red. Like mine.
Her body, willowy. An overgrown child’s. Like mine . . .
Her eyes, her voice, her face . . . He fears the curse most.
But it won’t be his body numb beneath the ruins
of smoldering wood and concrete and clothes and bone.
One can hear the gods laughing at the revolving plot.
What’s worse is that Kane Lister feels them,
moving down the Lister line.
Looking into the pond his reflection breaks and glimmers and
quickly changes into Tristan then Walter then Oliver.
And he thinks, while sitting there,
Would it have been better to make love in the backyard?
Then she wouldn’t have had to ride the bed screaming.
So when I lied and told Cecil that I can’t get pregnant
that every time I do I miscarry
and that the doctors can’t do anything, he said
That’s O.K. We’ll adopt. I pray to God that
we don’t succeed, that they see us as unfit parents.
Then my child won’t have to die
at the dinner table, in the bedroom, while breathing.
Then they won’t die on me. Or have their loves die on them.
They won’t be interrupted while eating, while fucking, while
living, to go down to the family crypt and visit the remains.