Her face is a void, like blank spaces in memory or the mystery
between pages glued together by hot candle wax dripping
during late nights reading grimiores and banned bibles in days when
the plague was big and her name was {redacted},
to read them again she'd have to rip them apart,
destroy and recreate from the tatters.
That would be pleasing symmetry with the work
she's undertaken, this slow reconstruction of a boy made soldier made king,
scratching out faded ink and scribbling new notes in the margins
sideways and between old lines, time-worn tongues and new idioms,
lines of dialogue that make what is called 'character,'
slinging goading slurs and cracking wise and slipping sinful sweet nothings
under the breast bone. His story will be written in her words.