“A Better Macbeth” & “Juliette”

Poems by Nina Anin

A Better Macbeth

This should be read as an antique piano,

sans tuner. Think electric stars,

widowed models in a trench war, think

Juliette in a moldy hut with deer skulls on the wall,

rabbits playing drug lords, liars in laurel crowns

How much of her will come back to haunt in

graffitied murals of Hollywood, branded into wine

While bedridden, remember Juliette's treasure chest

Holly would have pillaged those but tell you at once,

try being Macbeth in an electric chair

Juliette

Wind shakes raindrops from the leaves, in wine 

bowing to Juliette's hand, you hedonist 

To have a love affair with a name, waltz  

in fits of golden apples and diamond trash cans 

send holly wreaths, berries in the jam jar 

Holly assures that sadism will only come 

after kisses are exchanged below, cows fattened 

What is hedonism in a brief peephole where 

temptresses are terms and conditions 

She denies, but Holly sees scalpels as

ransom fees, ignore the burns from laurel pins

Juliette is primed for slaughter.