By Ledya
Edited by Molly Lidgerwood
Image Credit: J. J. Weerts L’assassinio di Marat.
A poem about Charlotte Corday.
(scarlet fist,
scarlet tongue)
you kill one man, make yourself
a sacrificial lamb
for an ungrateful nation
(serene sabre,
serene execution)
doomed by a couped Versailles,
a by-product of a
rotting revolution which
dispenses your corpse
(sea of dead skin,
sea off dirty Seine)
by the grave of disgraced nobility,
the churchyard of a denounced religion
oh you, with your bonnet,
your indignant mouth,
forever the loyal daughter
to a faithless mother