They wouldn’t let her see the enemy —
Long drapes hung down between,
refracting fabric that sent the light
in all directions, so she couldn’t see
what was jabbing at her, what she
was jabbing out against.
No, it was worse than that.
If she had known there was an enemy
she would have stood up, summoned her strength,
her resolve.
This was more like something eating away
at the edges of her being,
bland nibbles never noticed till too much was lost.
Well, that’s how it was at first.
Then she stood up to fight
and they wouldn’t let her see the enemy,
until, in some last flash of survival instinct,
she stopped thrashing at it
and turned her sword, instead, against
the deceptive drapes,
sliced at them, as high as she could reach
until they started to fall,
great cascading ripples of heavy cloth,
their weight finally hastening their descent
And she saw, on the other side,
someone just like her,
lost and scared and wounded.
In stunned recognition,
they both dropped their swords,
the clanging sound still echoing
as they picked their way across the cloth
to comfort each other.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 17, 2013
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