I’m not saying I was a JonBenét, exactly,
but mother did enter me in beauty contests
and made sure I won.
I’ll admit it—I would never settle for anything less 
than trophy wife. I mean, 
I never got why that would be so bad—
Your husband guaranteed to be rich
and successful. People would envy you. 

So, you see this cute guy at some party in the Hamptons
hanging out in the kitchen 
arguing about how Pluto is a real planet
stuffing his face with canapes 
unable to take his eyes off you
and you think, here we go again, 
until he snaps his fingers
and you’re in his arms, dancing to Faithfully
across the floor, out the door, into the night
and you know it’s a dumb song from the eighties
but it plays on, magically,
as his boyish heat seeps into your fine bones,
and you don’t want it to end, 
even after he whispers something emo 
about lord of the dead,
wondering if you could love him forever.

Well, dead-shmed.
Who was I to care about that when he held 
my hand afterwards and something
poured into me, into some hollow space
I didn’t know I had. 

Now, when I see him perched on that throne, 
preposterous in that so-called crown,
I find that because of the way 
he danced with me—me  
I actually want to know 
about these dead people approaching the dais,
their lost stories flitting across my brow. 

This is the thing about Hades—
it was not only my beauty that attracted him,
it was the way I was already dead.