I’m boring now. I’ve stopped warding my bow and my doorframe 
with smeared rowan oil. I use my staff to lean on 
weeding golden tomatoes, 
not to swing enemies back from swordpoint swipe. 
The times I’ve fingered the delicate vial of poison on a golden chain 
beneath my bodice (wondering if I should uncork it 
and rob malevolent red-haired queens
of chances to gloat before my wounds) 
zero in seasons, 
at most a half-cup. I’m boring now. I forgot 
what color plume I fletched my arrows with: 
some shade of sparrow-brown, like frozen mud? They’re in an attic box 
still iron-tipped. Meanwhile
I curl on window seats 
and trace through watercolor flowers’ almanac. I’m up to allium, 
with aster next. 
I enchant gowns for dolls. I’ve stopped 
carrying flint.
I was a feral kitten 
when you half-dragged me home: 
all pus ribcage and snarl. 
Maybe I swiveled an eartip towards food. Crisp spring greens. Stew. 
You sang and I pretended not to resonate
since music didn’t sharpen knives or bargain coal. 
I didn’t want 
to feel this good,
I didn’t want to uncurl fern against you.
What if I got used to April warmth?
What if it weakened me 
into cracking like ice?
Now I’m so daydream flower crown I’d miss an ambush. 
Now I lounge in unprompted baths
and steal all your tunics, gossamer,
enchant with snatches of unarmored skin. 
Look at how soft I am. 
I’m tempting now — 
my hands that almost never dug through frost, 
my full-grown nails like brand-new crescent moons.

[Ennis Rook Bashe is an Elgin and Rhysling Award finalist, TAP New York Writers’ Institute Poetry Prize winner, HWA Dark Poetry Scholarship-winning poet/novelist/game designer, and orange cat owner. Their chapbook Beautiful Malady includes work nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find more writing and information at https://linktr.ee/ennisrookbashe]