Schadenfreude

Her smile thin
as river ice,
hair done up
with edelweiss,

In satin, linen,
Irish lace,
backlit
so that I could trace

every arch and
subtle twist -
wound her fingers
through my fist.

She spoke of Kant
and Kierkegaard
and cauterized
where I’d been scarred,

she washed me with
a switch of thistle;
dried me with
a torn epistle.

She spoke of Nietzsche
and Descartes,
soft hands pulled
my ribs apart.

Mellifluous,
her labyrinth grew,
effacing what
I thought I knew;

she spoke of völkisch
and gestalt,
dressed my open
wounds with salt.

As I lay there
dull and dim,
a pallid, wheezing,
withered limb,

she kissed me softly
on each eye -
my requiem
her lullaby.