FRANKS CASKET

ANNE RYLAND
The Rejection

after 'Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid'
by Johannes Vermeer

I used to hide each message
within the bodice of my dress
until it became a heartbeat.
And so he filtered himself across

but when he stood in front of me at last,
all red-black and decorated, I knew
I had viewed him from behind a curtain.
Something fell off a ledge inside me.

Now the pages are still surging
out of him, with words bumping together
and penstrokes ever darker:
a woman can drown in that language.

He has delivered the latest one in person.
Cornelia brings it up. She appears
more damp than usual; all that creeping
through night for me - and also for him.

She gazes towards the window.
I hardly need to peep to know
the pale half-disc of his face is waiting
down there. Even his silence is not quiet.

I do not wish to squeeze inside the life
he has in mind, or stay the same size
for ever. Crumpling his letter, I discover
the hard white knot of my fist.

I take a fresh piece of paper.
Light catches the fine line of my quill.

A Mother's Precaution

Before that first sea journey
she painted a cross
over her daughter's breasts,
because you never knew
who or what was waiting
out there behind the islands
where rocks were not always
rocks; one glimpse
of the blood-red strokes
scoring the girl's chest
into quarters would be enough
to ward off even
a muckle selkie man
and nine months on
a bairn
with hairy webs
between its fingers and toes,
pads on its palms and soles,
and eyes that had probed
the ocean floor.
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