ManicDDaily

Missives Accomplished

There is an entwining twirl
in the script of certain centuries, a circlet
of the deliberate that, like the spiked
trim of armor, serves
a purpose beyond the
decorative.

The crossed “S” of Sworn, the ribboned
“B” of Beloved, the Ionic pillar that
leads into Forthwith–an unwinding calligraphy that, like
a curl lodged in
a locket, binds us
no matter how difficult the general flow
of characters,

tethering us to the half-moon brow
soon to be lost in childbirth, the shifting smoke of
gunpowder, the blue-black breast of
a recorded slave, a quill
that once took flight;

even the parchment, like the globe itself,
(or time), refusing to stay flat
and simple,
the swirling letters dark
wicks upon its lanterned waves.

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Agh!  The above is my draft poetic offering for Tess Kincaid’s the Mag.  Tess posts a picture prompt, and the picture is my version of the this week’s, a painting, Still Life, 1670, detail by Jean François de Le Motte.                                 .