zafusy| contemporary poetry journal

In a land far from here,
a daughter was kept in a tower -
tall, doorless.

It was built of blank, cold stones.
In her room there was only her loom
and her prayer-mat.

Her sleep was feverish,
almost like being awake. She wrestled
with dragons there; princes.

Then one day, sick of shadow,
leaned from her window,
to see an armoured stranger in the land.

He looked like freedom,
had eyes like honey,
addressed her: Princess.

‘I love him’, she whispered to the stones,
not knowing her father had built the tower,
that he might hear such whispers.

Hate made his heart flop like a toad.
She had lost what was most precious,
and shame was shit forced down his throat.

He choked her throat with his foot.
He stamped up and down.
He stabbed her small breasts with a knife.

He tossed her shrouded corpse
in a makeshift pit,
and spat on it.

And she was gone to him,
and this might have been an end,
but a white rose tree grew from the bones,

and a song-thrush landed in its branches
and the bird sang loud and clear:
‘farewell my love so dear’,

and then it trilled to all the world
as plainly as could be:
‘there is my father who killed me.’

The police were men enough
to know what honour was.
They heard the song, and slapped the father’s back.

His sons said ‘well done’,
crushed the bloom, wrung the bird’s neck.
They lit him up a cigarette.

Clare Pollard