Jane
A conversation over on Bluesky tonight reminded me of this poem about Jane Seymour (the queen, not the actress) that I wrote years back, and eventually posted on Livejournal.
I figured I should resurrect it here.
Warning: this poem includes moments of technically consensual but not exactly welcome sexual contact. If that’s not your thing, you might not enjoy this.
JANE
That night
I thought of Katherine
the way she had fallen to her knees
in prayer, as if her knees alone
could somehow lift her to
the arms of God. I remembered her,
Katherine, her aging body
and graying hair. The king
lowered his bulk upon me.
I closed my eyes, and thought
of Katherine, weeping in a window
to see the king, giving up
her jewels to an unqueen
in utter obedience, obedient until
the end, to the rules of God
before the laws of men.
Of Katherine.
Not Anne, the witch
the goggle-eyed whore,
of her clutching the
portrait of the king
in her hands
screaming her
love.
Not then.
Only of
Katherine, how the king
had kissed her cheek,
the way she stitched
his shirts. I thought of
Katherine, dying, and her
dying breath. They say
her heart turned black.
They say in her dying breath
she thought of him, this king
that now nuzzled my soft breasts
with his harsh beard. She thought of him,
and prayed his name, still thinking of
the strong thighs she once
caressed, the lips that once
pressed silence to her mouth.
She breathed his name, and
cried to God. A torrent
raged through her prayers;
she clung to his prayers
in her death.
the king’s beard
tickles my breasts
I closed my eyes
and thought of Katherine
of her breathing eternal prayers
tied to the king. She never
loved him so well as this, when
dying, she breathed
his name.
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I struggle in the bed
to be naked before him. I
cannot see him
in the dark.
To them
love came as a scream.
His hands fumble
on my skin. Sweet, he mumbles.
Sweet.
Have you ever loved, Jane,
ask my brothers, and I lower my eyes
to the floor, gently, properly,
a demure women in demure clothes.
I love the king, I say, and they nod,
eyes black. My eyes watch
the rushes on the floor.
The curtains
keep us dark. His
hands are heavy. I
do not kiss them.
Anne stopped breathing
when she saw the king.
She said.
The king’s hands
part my legs.
You
took him from Katherine, I said,
and I shall take him from you. She
screamed.
He strokes me there,
Soft, untouched, he says. Mine,
the king says. Mine.
Katherine.
I am
silent in this,
silent.
Anne died
three days before the king
climbed upon me. I pray
I will bear him
a son.
He has
climbed upon me,
panting.
I doubt many of us
will miss her.
(May, 2002)
