Pictures In A Mirror

Deep in the hollow jail, sleeps Lord Randall
The mixed voices speak of bread and of sheets that were
Scarlet and blue are at his head
His heart like a cat drowns in a well

He thinks of all the girls he will not love
He thinks not of the future or the past
Blue lightning spikes the hills above the sea
Where Kasa's ship sets sail for other where

There stands the chief with gold on his hair
Two fingers thick each link of coiled ore
Speaks to his white skinned wife, she answers not
He hurls his question angry to the gulls

His wife strikes her mouth with a skull like sound
The bleeding image of her loss revolves above her mind
With every line in its design and accusing eye
That pierces Kasa's soul

The slaves row on beneath the dragon flag
His heart recoils recall his red haired son
Beneath the burning walls that he razed down

His wife and he speak not as wine is brought
A cup that seethes like the black blood of wolves
His wife's dagger is hidden in her dress
He drinks joyless to a dark sleep

The Jailer bangs the iron door
Lord Randall wakes, wakes in pain
He shakes his shackles in the beaten gloom
The blood of his wounds is hard as coal

The Jailer leads him out upon the blinding bright stair
He feels uneven turf beneath his feet
The priest intones, the sword falls on his neck
The pain is boiling cold

They lay him in the tomb at the break of day
They close the earthen door upon his clay
The birds are plucking worms from the ground

Their feathers gray as mist on a cloudy morn
Foresters burn branches from the sleeping trees
The white sun turns to stone

His mother lies in her labor nine days long
She called on Saint Bridget in her time
I looked out on the room of my birth
With hangings rich of many strange designs

Nobles stand with their wine cups in the room
Saluting me and she the King's queen
Already, I am forgetting who I am
Already, I've forgotten who I've been

My mother lifts me up to her huge soft breast
Her nipple like a berry both hard and brown
Her eyes look on me like waves of the sea
And with small lips the yellow milk I draw