Scorpion
She wore green to meet him,
a gown sleek and shiny, emerald
silk that looked darker in the night.
Her eyes wide and wet as he moved
from behind the gnarled oak tree,
to the warped boards of the dock.
She heard his soft hullo over the
rushing water of the crossing.
"I shouldn't be here," she said.
"Not with you."
"No," he agreed. "I could ruin you."
"I'd drown in the scandal."
"Surely, my lady, I would drown
with you," his lips whispered against
the night-cooled skin of her neck.
"There are worse fates."
She yielded to him, sinking into his
flesh as she would sink into the
crossing. Her pulse thrumming in
her ears alongside the rush of water
and his heavy breath. His sting,
sharp and piercing. Then a flood
of gold warming her body.
Some months later, when she began
to show, when she floundered in the
broken glass waters of scandal, she
sent a letter to him, a plea in shaky
script, sealed with tears. Her scorpion
sent back a single sentence:
"You knew what I was."
And as his child formed inside her,
she remembered that old fable.
Frog and scorpion. Drowning together.
The scorpion, though, is born of fire
and water. He can shoot the rapids
of scandal just fine,
leaving her to drown alone.
