It was always me took care of things
– he should have remembered –
the bulls, the dragon and the tyrant kings,
and as we escaped a brother dismembered

She wanted him. She wanted this gown
a gift from the gods. A little bemused,
sweet Glauce accepted the dress and the crown,
they knew were my best. He was confused.

but for only an instant, as each tiny spore
soaked through her skin through each tiny pore
my curse distilled in the warp and the weft
each organ aflame till nothing was left.
He then thought of me to whom first he had vowed
as she lay extinguished in a black bridal shroud.

Marie-Therese Taylor draws on everyone and everything… no one is safe. Her short stories and poems have appeared in The Glasgow Review of Books, Soundwaves, Mixing the Colours, Nutshells and Nuggets, and The Stare’s Nest. She lives in Glasgow where she has also been known to perform.