Deborah Sacks
Elise
after The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen
I wear my hands like thimbles; numb to them,
To all else but them. My hands themselves
Are nettles, needling, white budded,
Grown where my hands used to be.
I am less than the least servant girl
Who has a clean dress and a dry bed.
I keep to myself, go when I may
Meet no one, by waysides and wastelands.
I know where the nettles grow wide and waist high.
I waste neither nettles nor daylight. The dampness
Is inside of me; I cough like a crow.
My thoughts marshal me like armies of green
Daggers. I am called a madwoman and a witch.
But it is a saneness to me, this task which has
its own dictates
And seasons, which is itself a world: all green.
‘I have shed tears to cry, ‘I am not made
For this’, but my nimble fingers answer,
‘You are’. So my pity grows as after rain.
The days whiten. I know the pain
Is time which must be lived. My brothers’
Feathers whiten. I will throw these shirts
As I would my arms around their necks.
It is a strange homecoming, this coming into
Oneself, this disinheritance.
To all else but them. My hands themselves
Are nettles, needling, white budded,
Grown where my hands used to be.
I am less than the least servant girl
Who has a clean dress and a dry bed.
I keep to myself, go when I may
Meet no one, by waysides and wastelands.
I know where the nettles grow wide and waist high.
I waste neither nettles nor daylight. The dampness
Is inside of me; I cough like a crow.
My thoughts marshal me like armies of green
Daggers. I am called a madwoman and a witch.
But it is a saneness to me, this task which has
its own dictates
And seasons, which is itself a world: all green.
‘I have shed tears to cry, ‘I am not made
For this’, but my nimble fingers answer,
‘You are’. So my pity grows as after rain.
The days whiten. I know the pain
Is time which must be lived. My brothers’
Feathers whiten. I will throw these shirts
As I would my arms around their necks.
It is a strange homecoming, this coming into
Oneself, this disinheritance.
Deborah Sacks read English at New College,
Oxford, and is currently studying versification
at The Poetry School.
Oxford, and is currently studying versification
at The Poetry School.
Page(s) 50
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