Call me Tess, by Susan Azar Porterfield

Posted on October 8, 2019

Not to see a scimitar in a swallow’s wing

or a swallow’s wing in an eyebrow’s arch.

Hand maidens strung up like game on a line,

like game on a line. Small birds

broken like the necks of girls. Look.

It will tell you what you tell yourself

is there.

Out at fairytale dawn, Angel Clare

worships gods before his Tess,

Artemis and Demeter he calls her

since he’s been duped by story

not to see the woman by his side,

and she, artless, asks him low

to love a little this lesser world.