Redemptress
by Liliana Graves

Runestone, volume 12

A ship came for me that was winged
like an angel, or a halcyon.
I died only once. I paid no toll.

Abandonment must belong. Mine
was dealt on both ends.
I wailed into the night, they heard, and then
there was no one to hear.

The cold stained my face. The sex
strained my bones.
The seasons parted from
themselves like corn husk. Beautiful white
May. You are so beautiful today.

Before I left I looked for willows,
wild grape, missing women and children.
In my arms the blood

ran green. I found, instead, myself,
indistinguishable.
Too easy to find and then release.
To cherish me was wearying.

I’m not so sure what drew them to me.
Dirty-palmed rakes
and bohemians.
Eldest sons with no money. Gilded
athletes promising eternity.

When a sympathetic guardian materialized
to lure me from the throes,
usually in spring,
I’d wander to the blank shore,

where a ship eventually came.
Deliberate and empty,
a captainless, winged thing.

The departure made me new, just
as the moonlight did,
blown upon the sea, heavy in my mouth.
It wiped the thumbprint from my spine.
What a strange medicine.

Somewhere the air was thick
with music, the juniper bright as nighttime.
A gentle body moved like a bird
on the water,

dear to me.
I could picture it in my stagnancy –
a sheer path, a laurel tree.

A phenomenal being that might never hurt me.