NaPoWriMo Day 27: Queen of Swords

Prompt:  Following Lauren Hunter’s practice of relying on tarot cards to generate ideas for poems, we challenge you to pick a card (any card) from this online guide to the tarot, and then to write a poem inspired either by the card or by the images or ideas that are associated with it.

More playing catch up (the end may be in sight, but my sanity might be approaching zero too). As a swordswoman, it's not surprising I was drawn to the suit of swords!

I know there is a traditional tarot design for all the cards, but when I was hunting about for inspiration, I found this lovely piece by Danielle Meder, and her sketch of the Queen of Swords definitely grabbed me (because in general I wear black by default, and I've outfits that look exactly like that, stilettos and all, and it's so me, even down to the sitting.)

Artist: Danielle Meder

There's a nicely detailed description of the Queen of Swords here. And because the first thing I thought of when gathering ideas for today was a line from Sylvia Plath's 'Lady Lazarus' (I eat men like air), I decided to structure the piece in a similar form. 

QUEEN OF SWORDS

Lady Lazarus’ sister

Has black hair, not red.

A sword

Issued from her mouth

At birth –

When I got older

They took it from me.

Broke it.

Gave me dolls with daisies instead –

So I buried them:

Chubby plastic bodies

Chaste, pink, and plump

With expectations.

Strewed daisy petals

Over their graves.

Sharpened my tongue

To cut like a longsword

Pierce like a dagger

Turned my broken weapon

Into words, edges

Slicing the page.