So there I was in the six
of swords, being ferried across
a dusky river to an uncertain
shore. Who was this child by my side?
And whose itchy cloak covered my head?
Sudden winds sprang up, drove us
downstream, brisk waves spitting,
spraying, knocking the six stiff
swords, one by one, out of
the boat and into the swirling depths.
The child clung to me, and the
ferryman swore, so I began
to sing about riding a proud
horse through a cheering crowd on a
blue sky day. My burgundy cloak
fell soft in folds, but a scratchy wreath
bothered my head, child now gone
from my grasp. Instead I held
in my right a stave, fist-bumped
revelers with my left. Soon to
arrive on a sunny hill, older,
heavier, bearing scales, slipping
coins into pale, thin hands. The earth
beneath my feet felt firm. Good
to be free of the horse and the boat.
And though the sky still blazed
blue, coins had changed to cups,
each filled with a flower. And you
stood beside me, young again
in the village where once we played.
You were the child after all.
And I loved you then, as I
love you now, wherever we are.
Marianne Taylor is a bookseller at Powell’s on Burnside where she manages the sales floor in the Blue, Gold, and Green rooms. In a previous life she taught literature and creative writing at a Midwestern college, and her poetry has been published widely in national journals and anthologies. She once served as Poet Laureate of her former small town, but for the past three years she’s been trying to find her way around Portland.