Call me Tess, by Susan Azar Porterfield
Posted on October 8, 2019
Not to see a scimitar in a swallow’s wing
or a swallow’s wing in an eyebrow’s arch.
Hand maidens strung up like game on a line,
like game on a line. Small birds
broken like the necks of girls. Look.
It will tell you what you tell yourself
is there.
Out at fairytale dawn, Angel Clare
worships gods before his Tess,
Artemis and Demeter he calls her
since he’s been duped by story
not to see the woman by his side,
and she, artless, asks him low
to love a little this lesser world.