The Weaver's Daughter

she told me once that she believes in fairies.
she was the kind of girl who said things like that,
who painted medieval tapestries across her walls.
I’d been watching her—there were often spirals
of flowers along her arms, or pen-drawn runes
which made her look distracted and misplaced.
she agreed to an evening: on the way to the movies
she told me suddenly to stop the car: a cat
was walking along a fence-top; she was enthralled
with things like that. she said there’s meaning in small
occurrences. she thought every moon was a new one.
I could almost believe it: the way her black mane
tore starlight from the sky—but it was cold.

next week, I brought a book on dante rosetti’s art;
we spent the day painting pomegranates on the ceiling.
in my mind there was never a time when she was done
painting pomegranates on ceilings, she was like that.
the dragons on her walls seemed to take on depth
as she told me about her evolution; she had read
about them in some book. a paint-green breath
seemed to curve their sides as I teased her, their eyes
nipping at me. the fan-air played its slender fingers
through her grass-green hair; the room spun with it.

we just had one more date, two weekends later.
she never wanted to go to coffee-shops, or dinner,
and even at school, most of her was still
walking the forests of some imagined England.
even when friends came to see her at home, bells
rang out of ruined stone cathedrals in her ears.

that last night when her parents were out of town
we had spaghetti and wine, listened to records.
my mouth found its way to her neck, my shaking hand
to her crescent waist, lower. we kissed, then,
but when we pulled away, her eyes were twin
sad princesses, locked in some witch’s tower.
she had something to tell me. she stopped the music,
blew out the candles, and opened the curtains.
a bar of white solidified between the window
and fixed upon her forehead. she turned to me.
the horn shone like a slice of moon. you have one
too, she told me, you can see it under the sun.
well, not see it, but it casts a dark, dark shadow.

(from The Arcana Fragments, ca. 2001).