The Woman in Red

My Father's House

If she lose the whole world,
What does it profit a girl to gain her own soul?

In my father's land are many mansions.
No matter how long the day, the sun never reaches all the rooms.

My heart is a hot chicken pot pie.
I must not smile without apology to those I wound with my wholeness.

I am a child in an empty house.
A loved bat, I flit across the living room ceiling.

Tempting Fate

In the house with no roof
Find the beaked boy and the old woman
Drinking tea and laughing.

Godmother Fate,
Old woman dressed in red,
I have courted you with words and flowers.

I have wrapped my heart in waxed paper
And thrust it into your hands.
You gave it to your bird to peck at.

I do not need it anymore.
I do not think of anger or forgiveness.
If I had two hearts, I would give you the other.

Ship of Fate

Godmother. Woman in red. Old woman.
"Daughter, it's time."

I walk on the deck of my red ship.
My feet, painted red, are under green water.

The round moon mirrored through ripples is upside down.
Together, we sink and rise.

With the old strength of my girlhood,
I run to the edge we all came from.

My ship moves just below the surface now.
Its sails almost graze the tops of the waves.

How to Marry a Merman

I row over clouds and dive down
Into a house with no roof.

The wives of the mermen
Throw rubies into the sky and swing
On seaweed and pearl porches.

A fish in the sky is worth two birds in the bush.
I have always wanted the impossible.

Brides dress in foam for lace
Holding hands and singing
With the bridegrooms of the deep.

The harder to have
The more I hold.