THE QUEEN’S QUEEN

Or regality is the reigning

indemnity, this thread, as a silk strand

augments the meadow with its redness,

the dance proceeds, one clap, the sole stepper

a solarity, her “uncanny vulnerability”

as the player plays, the player’s player,

Amphitrite. “A will of multiplicity,

an ocean,” needs pageants and pomps

to entertain it, a mechanical dolphin,

a Tom called Arion, “spouting real water

from its blowhole, crown.” I am merely

a carpenter, crafter

of magics, says someone, a secret

practice. But she

presses a whiteness to our eyes, a skin’s

uncanny luminosity, “intrinsic

mobility of the element fire” as though fire

were cellular, and these vaulting

regenerations the royal

res. Her name is C or E, consonantal

vowel. Music the element

of fife or lute

or amplitude of the soundtrack

in historic playback. Depress the lever

of historicity, that story,

the lovelorn lover, hard duty,

betrayal. Her poisoned gown

of silk and semblance,

blooming mask, a player

of wonders, wedless.

She the projection of every season,

unchanging rain.