For seven days the handmaids combed her hair

of all the ashes of her grief and care —

its dregs and lees and residues — and then

they bore it off to bask it in the sun,

and treated it with purest spices, one

day, then another, till the time came when

she had to go at once (though no one had

invited her), as if one of the dead,

and walk through palace doors that summoned fear,

and leaning on her handmaids, promptly go

down that long hall to see The Presence, who

meant death from nothing more than drawing near.

Because his brilliance radiated so,

she felt her self filled wholly with his face.

It fired her crown jewel; she filled as though,

already full enough, she were a vase.

Before she'd crossed the palace's third hall,

she overflowed already with his might.

The green glow flooded her, wall after wall.

She had not thought, in all that malachite,

To walk so far with all these gems, each stone

a weight grown heavy as the King's might shone.

Her fear had made the jewels cold. And now, her

walking almost done, she looks; he's seen

there looming from his throne of tourmaline.

She sees, as real as any thing, a tower.

Catching her on the right, her handmaid-guide

now led the fainting Esther to his chair.

His scepter-tip then touched her, stirred her, there.

… not feeling it, she knew it deep inside.

Der aussätzige König

Da trat auf seiner Stirn der Aussatz aus

und stand auf einmal unter seiner Krone,

als wär er König über allen Graus,

der in die Andern fuhr, die fassungsohne

hinstarrten nach dem furchtbaren Vollzug

an jenem, welcher, schmal wie ein Verschnürter,

erwartete, daß einer nach ihm schlug;

doch noch war keiner Manns genug:

als machte ihn nur immer unberührter

die neue Würde, die sich übertrug.