by Demi Armstrong
Ophelia by John Everett Millais, c. 1851
Ophelia
Should I be like the moon? Floating above the stars,
shielded by an empty sky. If I were to be the moon,
Would you allow me to control the tide? Or would you take
my rippling reflection, wrap my legs in reefs and think of me
as your pure and obedient nymph. Yours to display behind glass
until you trade me to your favourite collector
for the possession of a deity more powerful than I.
No matter that your blood flows through my body.
No matter my fair skin made fairer by familiar walls,
you love the sun in a way you would never love the moon.
The sun, whose rays have the freedom to reach each corner of this world.
Who may hide behind clouds when his rain engulfs your pride?
The sun is worthy of your respect. Though the sun may project false light,
You would still accuse me of giving more light than heat
when I, the moon, would only dutifully guide and aid you.
If I am not a daughter or a sister may I be his love
or would you think me foolish? Did you not make me for this purpose,
did you not mould me into some daisy to be put in water,
to be veiled and beautiful and quiet?
If I were to fall in love would you let him pull me apart?
Leaving scattered petals on the floor. Would you let him take me out of water,
watch him, watching me wilting; a daisy with brown rotting scars. You would.
The sun is far greater, far more worthy of respect than the moon.
Gold is more precious than any foolish yellow daisy.
My place is written in old fading tapestries;
should you find yourself concealed and wounded and dying,
our shared blood cascading, flooding the space around you,
escaping the vessel within you, I would pass out daisies in sorrow.
No matter that I am free; I am still the nymph held below water,
the moon, trapped in the sea’s reflection. I am still behind glass, suffocating.
A daisy displayed in water, displayed on the ground, vulnerable and weeping.
Should I be like the sun and leave, could I?
How could I leave now that I am still below water?
Still veiled and beautiful and quiet.
Still a corpse.
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