Silver Swan

Round and cloaked in a gown

silvery as anemic dusk, she hums,

sways, and when the stretching music

shrugs off its meek mask and transforms

into a swan—no, a flock of swans—wings

clashing, countering, and commingling,

she rises into a pique, imagining herself

a slender ballerina still, her skin smooth

and pale as stars, her body twirling, arms

stretched out over her head like bowed swans’

necks, and to her tiny childhood self,

clutching that threadbare rabbit,

she looks like a dime tossed and—upon landing

on its rim—spinning and spinning,

silver and flashing, newly minted,

yet tarnished, the priceless grime of antiquity,

spinning and spinning as only swans do

when shot in the breast and flung by the shock,

around and around, the glassy pond

rising, a silver mirror falling up,

and swallowing her whole.

This poem was published by La Piccioletta Barca, February 2020