Veritas Was a Maid in the House of Forever

Veritas was a maid in the House of Forever
Which the weekend guests never understood.
Kitchen maid,
Laundry maid,
Who sees your stained sheets, and the gristle you found
Buried in the meat at dinner,
And spat discreetly into your napkin.
Finite, they find her,
Dangling at the end of the Butcher Boy’s rope,
Her head at an unnatural angle
(Like a toucan’s beak),
After she slits the stolen canvases in Milady’s
                                        Milord’s
                                        The Butcher Boy’s
                                        Chamber.
The next morning comes the knock at the servants’ entrance:
Her cousin
Her sister
Her niece
Her aunt
Chapped to the elbows,
And pitiable thin.