• Week 22 • Pantoum •

My Stippled Girl of Daisies – A Pantoum For Two Lovers

Willows against a lead sinker of sky,
two girls giggle like starlings in the ash;
They let their butterflies soar together.
They are bound and drowned in separate lochs.

Two girls giggle like starlings in the ash,
the girls who love the swan curves of one another;
they are bound and drowned in separate lochs.
My stippled girl of daisies.

The girls who love the swan curves of one another,
trout-belly throats cut so they can’t cry out:
my stippled girl of daisies!
The clergyman’s robe is stained.

Trout-belly throats cut so they can’t cry out
the shadow vale where each will wait for the other.
The clergyman’s robe is stained,
the Lord have mercy on their souls

in the shadow vale where each will wait for the other.
They would not marry the miller’s boys –
the Lord have mercy on their souls –
their mothers cried the tears of the damned.

They would not marry the miller’s boys.
Their fathers are at a loss.
Their mothers cry the tears of the damned.
Together they are revealed,

their fathers are at a loss –
they had gone to mass like good girls.
Together they are revealed,
the clergyman preached and leered.

They had gone to mass like good girls,
but they would never sip the dislodging wine.
The clergyman preached and leered.
The church draft unravels discrepancies in God

and they would never sip the dislodging drink.
They see one another clear across the aisle
as the church draft unravels discrepancies in God;
together they are sentenced.

They see one another clear across the aisle;
they let their butterflies soar together.
Together they are sentenced.
Willows against a lead sinker of sky.