My grandmother recounts a game
she and her sisters played as girls.
Candle in one hand, mirror in the other,
they backwards-climbed dark stairs, careful
not to misstep, not to stumble, not to become
fallen girls. At the landing, their fate revealed
in the flickering reflection one of two futures:
the image of a husband
or that of the Reaper's.
Who will warn the girls of Death's trick,
how too often he wears the face of love?
HUSBAND DIVINING by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose |Poetry Reed Diffuser
$15.00Price
Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose (she/her) is the author of Wild Things, (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (winner, Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022). Her multi-genre writing appears in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, Room, and Clockhouse, among others. The recipient of Descant’s 2025 Betsy Colquitt Poetry Prize, Elizabeth lives in Rochester, NY.
