“He said, ‘She has a lovely face–‘” -Tennyson
My mirror broke, so I looked out the window. That’s when I saw.
Elf-lance they called him. Elf-arrow.
I was struck, opened the window,
I heard him singing by the river, and all my luck
ran down the casement to the stones below, trod
under the hooves of his heavy horse, iron
striking fire from the stones. I started to unravel,
my tapestry curling back from the frame, my bones
opened, marrows filled with the sound
of his voice, the clop of hooves, the rider passing.
I was undone. The towers in the distance
(I had never looked at them before)
shone in the sun. I turned down winding steps
lifted rope from mooring, floated down the flowing river
looking only at the sky. The sun blinded,
my face burned, I was undone.
I thought, he will ride back, shining,
He will know me, though he never saw my face,
the lady in the tower.
God in his mercy lend her grace.
Sara Amis holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Georgia. Her work has appeared in Magpie Magazine, the Flagpole, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Jabberwocky 3 and 5, Datura, Moon Milk Review, Luna Station Quarterly, Nonbinary Review, Stirring, the feminist speculative poetry anthology The Moment of Change, and is upcoming in Negative Capability Press’ Stone River Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems. Her poem series “The Sophia Leaves Text Messages” was published as an artist’s book by Papaveria Press, and she has an experimental poetry project on Twitter.com titled “The Traveling Bobcat Poetry Show.”
