Cotillion Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

we will scoop up the moonlight so that our lamps won't go out
and leave every night surreptitious as the seas
twelve princesses at our ease

at our own cotillion.
and we are breathing lilies lightly
rosebuds on our wrists slipped from the tower

in love with mists and our own dower
insignia of the rose we are those
who wore out their embroidered slippers nightly

waltzing in twilight blue dungeons.

we will cross the lake making no mistake
do not follow after;
spy on our sequined laughter

like Amy Lowell's "Opal", darling-diaphonous,
shimmering with one thousand radiances, hidden
shot silk, and brimming with mirage-

and pinned like a corsage or flung carelessly
a glittering shawl
in our illusory wake

all the colours in the lake
the trees will glow concealing
all we know

to wake drowsily farther on
in a faun coloured dawn

we won't grow old or waited on
let us have our few white nights
on the shores of Spring still fair

our stephanotis and our stars
in the dreaming everywhere
far jasmine and the sandalwood

fish not caught, swimming in amethyst,
we won't be missed or understood.
rose and briar in the wood

the branching dancing
of an hour.

sifting through Infinity
in our own vicinity.

mary angela douglas 22 november 2018; rev.25 january 2019