Victorian Violet Press
Once-Woman in the Inn Garden
I wear my history wrapped loose – a dress
of fog, the neckline twined with summer stars.
Elm-leaf embroidery trims its skirt; silk shoes
step carefully on thyme-grown paths. Split hearts,
fresh-opened by their lovers' knives, are hung
above my breast. Today, the beat within
has no advice to lend its distant kin.
The fabric flows, a riptide cool and wet,
where pale fish swim the folds and stir old hopes
remembered but unrealized. A twist
of ribbon - robin’s eggshell mixed with foam –
swings from the waistband. Eardrop irises
tremble above my shoulders, light as tears
that spangle eyelashes, gem endless years.
I tremble at the ocean’s edge. A breeze
along the harbour lifts my fading hair,
shakes out each swirling memory; unwreathes
my scarf and lets it fall beside a pool
where mallards drift indifferently. Beneath
this mirrored sky, I smell a pushing-up
from mud, through stem, to waterlily’s cup.
A channel buoy clangs softly on the tide.
I listen - faint as mist – concealed by rocks
and crooned to nonexistence by the gulls.
The wind chases itself and dies. My walk
is chillfoot, up the lawn to wooden chairs
where rich girls laugh. They toss no smiles at me -
but sip sweet malice with their lemon tea.