Portrait of a Young Girl by Emily Isaacson
Her aunt gave her mother a bouquet of lilies when she was born.
Her ears were small and ivory, the shape of lily of the valley petals.
The doctor had sat up late burning the midnight candle.
That was how she was known: burning the beeswax at both ends.
The flames of hope were higher. Her long dark hair creased down her back.
Her eyes were as deep as the pools of night. Her friends were fidelity.
They were old souls with bent wings who found their solace in paradise
among the water lilies.
There was a memory of laughter;
it was the humour that kept her straight-backed
even though she had scoliosis.
Sometimes the pain made her mute and
tears ran out the sides of her eyes.
Her mother had always dreamed she would play the piano,
but an hour a day was some form of torture.
She called it her torturous chair.
Even as a child, her small hands
wrapped around the edges
of the wood upholstered seat. And still she said nothing.
She could hang upside down off the seat.
Her mind could walk on the ceiling.
It made sense to her to see everything upside down.
The metronome would tick calmly in the room.
She would write down notes of a scale: semitone, tone, tone in pencil.
When she was older,
there were suitors who sat up as straight as she did;
They sat across from each other
and stared each other down
until tears ran out of the sides of her eyes.
The stipulations around her
were as granite grey as a pirate’s rock,
and they were unsure whether she was a sunken treasure.
The ancient sea
lapped the shore. There was only
the light on the horizon now.
