When the boat slid before me as if waiting,
I snipped the blue thread in my wrist
with a sliver of the shattered mirror
and with my bloodied finger
wrote my name on its stern
so as to be remembered.
I laid down, unravelling my braids from their ivory combs.
They trailed behind me, a tangle of bright skeins
like seaweed skimming the surface.
I watched the blood flowers floating below,
a rose tapestry aswirl, embroidered on the water.
My life ebbed like the stream’s foam.
Though faint, I fought to raise my head
to gaze toward Camelot, my wrists
staining my white gown red.
Crowned with the last light,
I chanted happily, words slurred into nonsense,
serene, no more dreading the future.
Behind me, my tower spindled
the gilt-edged brocade of clouds.
I had been most popular at court among the other ladies,
and favorite of the knights, who sought my attentions.
One lady envied me and told her mother,
a powerful witch, who trapped me in that tower
and cast the curse.
The last words I heard as I died were Lancelot’s.
Did the lady hear of them?
She has no need for another curse,
now that my doom has come to pass.
She is satisfied, but I will haunt her now.
When she looks in her mirror, I will be there:
my face cracked from side to side,
dripping blood on her reflection.
Lorraine Schein is a NY writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, Scientific American, NewMyths and Michigan Quarterly, and in the anthologies Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. Her book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, is available from Autonomedia.
Image, “I am Half Sick of Shadows,” by John William Waterhouse.
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