Mary, Queen Over Water

“Untitled” by Anonymous

Her son’s birth was one of questions. Was he
hers? Or was he secreted into the birth
chamber like a furtive spell? Forget her
water breaking, a warming pan, was all the people
whispered, all it took to exchange him,
a changeling. The people might have painted
long teeth, a scraggly beard, the promise
of wings folded beneath his skin.
They might have listened for an eerie
instrument, the patter of fruit-sized feet
dancing in the nursery. Surely Mary
laid a pair of open iron scissors
by his cradle, as good mothers do, or a coat
inverted to expose the thread teeth
like a wolf’s maw in cotton and wool.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katherine Gaffney completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently working on her PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, jubilat, Harpur Palate, Mississippi Review, Meridian, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. She has attended Tin House's Summer Writing Workshop (2014), Sundress Publications' SAFTA Residency in (2021), and was a scholar at the Sewanee Writer's Conference (2022). Her first chapbook, Once Read as Ruin, was published by Finishing Line Press.

About the artist

The artist chooses to remain anonymous.