A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

Courting Mary Ann Cotton

14 A Face to Meet the Faces Courting Mary Ann Cotton R. Elena Prieto When Mary Ann Cotton died on 24 March 1873, she had been accused of killing four of her husbands and almost three times as many children. —from Mary Ann Cotton: The Black Widow, The Most Evil Women in History I walk on men like glass. Bouquets of flowers might win me, bouquets of flowers won’t save you. I’ll bring them back graveside, dried petals to kiss the turned earth, back to husbands I walked on like parlor floors or dried bones: powdered marrow slick and soft on the point of my heel. Inheritance powder— arsenic oxide, rat poison. I spill children like milk. Convenience is acquiring a new life at will: new husbands snared by the smudge of life growing within. Sign here, dear. Your future— a swarm of black umbrellas, little boxes for little children who might have parted their hair like you. Might have worn red ribbons or bowties, small hourglasses waiting to be tipped. ...