Anne Boleyn's Neck

as women were a
dangerous reminder of an

although

and a dismissed mistress is
always last to know that

while the wind whet blades 
of grass on stone then

instead two heads bent low
how napes bared through

though conspiring in 
pianissimo either

to be beheaded a stutter of

some scofflaw behind 
a scaffold with

or hooded not

nor only sanguine in 
the bloody sense both

laughed O, I have but
a little neck so

for there is not
much to sever with

Published under the name Jeanette Karhi in Phoebe: Journal of Gender & Cultural Critiques, Fall 2005, Vol. 17, No. 2.