When she asked for the dresses, the king’s
Order came to us, the maidens of
The kingdom. Commanded on pain of death,
To weave dresses as golden as the sun,
As silver as the moon, as dazzling as
The stars.
Weaving a dress from sunlight merely
Burns the hands,
Threads of fire ignite fingertips,
Leaving heat-radiating scars, reminders
Of gold’s price.
Moonlight is cooler, less punishing. Silver
Water streaming through the needle.
Moonlight forgives distraction and
Missed stitches.
But only a witch can weave
A dress from starlight. Interlacing
Diamond-keen beams risks
Blood and blindness,
Fair forfeit for the thief of constellations.
And so, for our sister we wove
The golden gown and
The one of silver, fashioning her freedom
With flame and luminescence, but
For the one of stars
We gave ourselves.
Deborah Sage is a native of Kentucky, USA. She has most recently been published in Eternal Haunted Summer, Literary LEO, Fairy Tale Magazine, From the Farther Trees, the 2022 Dwarf Stars Anthology , Amethyst Press’s All Shall Be Well anthology for Julian of Norwich and Eye to the Telescope.
Image source unknown.
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