Marion McCready

And how do you survive? Your long throat, your red-rag-to-a-bull head? You rise heavy in the night, stars drinking from your poppy neck. Your henna silks serenade me under the breadth of the Pyrenees. You move like an opera, open like sea anemones. You are earth’s first blood. How the birds love you, I envy your lipstick dress. You are urgent as airmail, animal red, Ash Wednesday crosses tattooed on your head. Your butterfly breath releases your scents, your secrets, bees blackening your mouth as your dirty red laundry all hangs out.

There is no escaping the storm of roses crisscrossed on the split-cracked wall of a dead fountain arch. There is no escaping their uterine balls, expanding as a reminder of the children I never had. If you listen carefully you can hear the vibrations, the heart drone of their petal jaw-harps. And there’s no going back, no indiscovery of Mars or these red planets brooding before me, light predators, sun-hatched and bloodening like the fists of women who have gone to war.

In my end is my beginning prologue With a sharp comb dipped in ink I’ve tattooed my life story all over my body. I’ve tattooed the footprints of my children — this way 
I carry their walking with me; the footprints of my twins who died before their feet touched the ground. And the footprints of my one-year-old son, James, whom I pray for daily. i: dent-de-lion Because I bore the lion of my father’s country my Maries and I picked dandelions — lion’s teeth. All our childhood we picked them — blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch’s gowan, monk’s head, priest’s crown, worm rose Mary Queen of Scots Mary Queen of Scots I held their gold beneath my chin; imagined the lion rampant — its tongue, its claws on my skin. When I find the tallest stalk I know how much I’ll grow. I weave their sun bells into my wedding bouquet. When I blow seeds from the puffball and three remain — three children will I bear. Mary Queen of Scots Mary Queen of Scots ii: the caulbearer When he was born a shimmer of womb-skin stretched across his face — I knew then he would always be with me. I carried the caul through all my years in captivity. I imagined the membrane attached to his plump baby face like a coral headdress; I spoke to it, willed it to carry my letters, my messages into the drowning depths of his night sleeping head. iii: daffadowndilly Despite the westerly gales, despite the persistence of snowfall the daffodils are opening. They are opening the way tapestries, labored at one stitch at a time, suddenly arrive at something whole. Mary is stitching her name over and over, pulling the threads through her long fingers. For nineteen years her name has been a plaything. The ends of her fingers weave puns and anagrams. She is a woman of many names — she has woven a self to match each name — Tu te Marieras Veritas Armata Sa Vertue M’attire Tu as Martyre And the daffodils, they too have many names — Daffadowndilly, Narcissus, Lenten lily, Easter bell. How they weave themselves out of the grass, out of the green shoots and sheathed leaves; heads hung, necks waiting to be snapped. iv: the mermaid and the hare Though all my life I’ve worn dresses of mohair, damask, or serge, stiffened in the neck with buckram; though I wear breeding layers of petticoats, farthingales expanded with hoops of whalebone; they’ve removed my heart-shaped cap, my mourning veil, stripped me bare to the waist, replaced my silver hose-covered legs with the wet mucus of a fish tail. Two husbands dead — they visit me nightly. In dreams my hands turn into gudgeons, chubs, loaches; the white magic of a hare biting at my heels. v: snowdrops When they are ready they send for her. There are so many of them — men who must watch her die. The snowdrops outside her window change color in the sunrise. She is tired. She has lain awake all night. She is dressed in black with a long white veil — a caul to keep her son close to her. She counts the pearl acorn buttons on her satin dress; she counts the double string of rosary hanging from her waist. Her God is ready for her; his body hangs above her and she carries his cross into the great hall. Pearl queen — she imagines the hall is filled with pearls and the pearls are snowdrops. Into the sheer purity of it she will fall. She is going into the arms of her mother. In blood she came, in blood she will go — stripped to red petticoat, red bodice, red sleeves. She feels herself glowing in the center of the hall — sister to the fireplace; curls burning around her pale face, her auburn eyes. Hunkering for final prayer she commits herself, kneels to the block; hot fur, breath, the pounding heart of her lapdog pressing against her leg. She gasps as the phoenix in her chest breaks apart her body with two blows — one from each wing as it rose. vi: red and white Though it was the color of mourning, for my wedding I wanted to wear white — The color of fresh snow and milk The color of Isis and for wrapping the dead The color cloaking the early monks The color of the sacrificial lamb The color of the transfiguration of our Lord The color of the unicorn My colors are red and white — a white veil flows from my pale face and tight red curls. When I walk in the garden I scatter sunlight. I am titanium white I am Sirius I am an Arctic fox My heart is ermine I am a white horse ridden by Conquest; you will remember my name.

After Lorca mother’s malison The burr of the wind is seeping through the door, pink stumps of rhubarb are breaking through the soil. Though it is February I have the mind of autumn. Though it is February

I have been known to birth a mountain whole, a range of them in my belly, I popped them out one by one. The blood-cut son born black, I could not believe the wholeness of him, the crushed diamond of his face. And then the other, who flew from me, a shooting star; a twin mirror girl, whose orchid face opened and opened and opened. There were more of them, one born of water, one of fire, one for every element. But now my mountain days are done. The red night clouds, the afterbirth, the snail shell whorls of them. The unborns we named: Beinn Narnain, Ben Vane, Beinn Ime, Ben Vorlich, and Beinn Bhuidhe