Featured Poem • May 2014
The Silver Comb
Mari Ness
I know, oh how, oh how I know what happens to those who yield, who bend to touch the silver combs, and find themselves dragged beneath the cold grey hills, drowned beneath the banshee’s touch. I know of the men who have died beneath those silver breasts and shining hair, or turned into nothing but scattered dust as they sat enthralled by haunted song, by fiddles and harps carved from sheer moonlight, by the deadly sweetness of silver lips. And I am to wed tomorrow eve, the son of the lord with the rough fists and ready smile, who waits even now to tumble me into a bed of fine straw and fill me with fine children. But oh, the comb gleams in the silver moonlight, and oh, the song is very sweet! And oh, she shines in the grey moonlight, and the wisps of fog rise up to greet her. And oh, her voice calls, rich with promised honey, hot with the warmth of crackling fires. It would not take much to stroke that comb, to fall beneath the banshee’s lips. I imagine myself sucking at her breasts, and I bend, I bend to the road.
Mari Ness is the author of Through Immortal Shadows Singing, an experimental novella-in-poetry. She has also published poetry and short fiction in multiple publications, including Strange Horizons, Goblin Fruit, Clarkesworld, Apex Magazine, and Tor.com. For a longer list of her works, check out her official blog at marikness.wordpress.com, and to keep up with what she’s doing, follow her on Twitter at mari_ness. She lives in central Florida.
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