Spindles
by Claire Booker

How many times you turned those pages,
led me towards sleep
in that far country–a banquet
laid with best apples, twelve golden plates,
and wings, vibrant as Schiaparellis,
flurrying around the cot: she shall be graceful
as a bird, happy as the day is long.

I could hear the story over and over.
Your voice never tired.
But spindles are spindles and girls
will prick their fingers.
The court sleeps, thorns push up,
walls pupate.
Soon only the weathercock
sees beyond the forest.
Years pass and a heart skips.

Your watch,
forgotten in my drawer
until I search for pins,
still beats out time–
just as it did when strangers
held you kindly, sirens blared
and you whispered: don’t wake her yet.



 

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