Me,
wide-eyed, hiding
behind crocheted cloth,
watching two figures
at the kitchen table –
teapot and Tarot between them,
esoteric is domestic as
the Empress,
my Mother,
shuffles, reshuffles
draws
draws
draws
flicks through pages
recurrence making meaning
offering interpretations
that collide with
how was your appointment?
what did so-and-so say?
Years later, she says
you might be a changeling
child.
Midnight, midsummer
in the woods is the right place
to be stolen.
Still she shuffles,
lays out cards in my name –
ten of swords
a pentacle
a queen appears
and even as a changeling,
I am still
hers.
—
A note on the title: (After the French revolution, Royal cards were often stripped of their titles. III The Empress was known as La Grande Mère, meaning ‘The Great Mother’, rather than ‘The Grandmother’)
Fate and Fortune, Brian Innes, page 288
—
‘La Grande Mère (III The Empress)’ was published in 2016 as part of the UEA Undergraduate Creative Writing Anthology, Undertow.
