I

The swan she knew from many picture books.
It came in a cloud of snow
Settling light feathers on the lake.
And there was a goose girl quavering in the hedgerow;
An awkward goose girl henned and pecked.
And after a night of dreaming she would wake
To arms like sticks and legs like sticks, sacked
In a hand-me-down, and her heart would knock in the sun’s fleck.
Many an orchard morning to the starling’s creak
She turned her mirror to the wall and wept.

  II

When Sal in time became the swan
It broke her heart to be ignored,
And from her proud beak hideously 
ignominy deplored.

Hissed at the corners of the house
And at the great maternal bed
Where in connubial hatred lay
Her soul disquieted.

When she was swan and light as air
It pleased her feathers to be flying,
And easily she let her tears
Dry in the wind if she were crying.

And she was swan upon the glass
And hid her long feet in the water,
And nipped the warm food-giving hands,
And sneered like the proper elder daughter.