Bequeathed, by Camille LeFevre

Reckoning, installation by Harriet Bart (USA) 2022. NewStudio Gallery in St. Paul, MN. Photography by Rik Sferra.

Bequeathed 

Grendel’s mother, feral Queen, 
crouches in her cave of grief,
a grisly slab of Beowulf’s sword arm, 
on a rusted harrow bowl,
or better his head,
a tangled mess of text, Medusa-like, 
all the versions of her story, 
eaten up in vindication 
of this wronged woman warrior, 
her point of view now,
bound in lead, beeswax, gold. 

Vampire, ageless and regal, 
claims she isn’t fussy, 
yet only the bloodiest Bordeaux will do, 
leaving the golden sphere bobbing in Bacchus’s hand
or tenderly balanced in her palm as she drinks, 
her conquests arrayed 
on skin as distressed as her cloak,
and in worlds bound by her mind, bodies
of text, from all the libraries in the world,
vanquished, 
by the Queen of the night. 

A mother’s daughter, whose punishment? eats only words, 
stripped and tangled on a platter, harrowing
her starvation a plumb bob, true vertical, 
a glass vial for her reign of tears, 
vows to eat the bloody steak with her father, 
not now, not here, though. Only books, 
she screams, waving her rusty sceptre, her iron will
bound by the bequeathed. Fiercely diminished, 
she is discernment, 
Lording over inherited darkness,
her alchemical array. 

Neat trick, says Vampire, 
as daughter snaps skin from table, cloaks her shoulders 
eleven objects, exquisite, disappeared
from mother’s lair 
only shadows left, repositories
of grief, famine, war, despair.
She strides, sovereign, 
into the fullness, of new stories, 
a Queen herself, issuing edict, 
not of bequeathal 
but of becoming. 

​Camille LeFevre

Camille LeFevre is an arts journalist, writes memoir and other creative nonfiction, and practices and teaches ekphrastic writing. She lives in northern Arizona.