Lullaby

Lullaby

You must leave immediately--

(this from her sister, urgent lighted taper borne in the doorway)

You must leave immediately; where will you go?

But perhaps it is better that you do not know,

(this from Bellatrix, fresh from a second defeat

fumbling blind in the shadowed room:

loose change--a pile of Knuts and a Sickle or two,

and, though beauty and youth are fickle commodities now,

the tiny hand-mirror)

Perhaps it is better that you do not know.

The taper is left burning by the bed.

When Narcissa is gone, Bellatrix blows it out.

Now childhood jealousies have been altared to blood loyalty--

Now in the dark her reflection is transformed--

Now illusions flee; perfection stares back at her with wide animal eyes

Now the shadows begin to speak in sibilant whisperings--

*

Come to me, darling; come to me, child;

I'll soothe you to sleep. Let this world that is wild

Destroy all else I see; only swear that you'll stay

Close by me forever, and love me I pray.

*

So you have had it destroyed, then, blood traitor?

Faithless wretch--

You snatched happiness away: set yours free and pinioned the wings of mine

Caged it, knowing only you could work safety catch

When I tried the latch it would no longer open.

Your mother would have had your name erased by fire

Just to build up her little pureblood empire--

Overspilling the brim with inbreeding, intriguing--

Golden threads seeking only power and purity. Narcissa married well.

I said, wait--wait a little longer

(Ready to welcome you back into the fold.

But your long absence told;

At last, patience sandpapered off)

The slate of youth was blank again

Winter carried away its freight

And I was left with a sullen springtime, and a broken mirror into the bargain;

Nothing to thank you for except the seven years of bad luck.

She destroyed you by fire;

I would not blame you now if, in a fit of ire,

You heaped on burning coal and melted down the gold of the tapestry--

Serve her right for the mire she blundered her way through

In the bringing up of you.

*

Now all your affections and affectations

Belong to someone else; you traded in

Your darkness for laughter and light,

Somewhere I could never follow.

Come here and sit a while with me;

I will sit you on my knee, and we can pretend

The past twenty years away--

Run a timeline parallel to our dizzying private hell--

Throw them into a wishing well.

Tread this path that is easy for you to follow.

Look, the white stones lie open in the moonlight;

Here I stand, at one end. Only, now your footsteps

Echo hollow. Only,

A day in the train--

A boy in the rain--

The arcane rituals of your friendship; and

I do not wish to speak of this again.

*

Never again shall I recognise your name.

I relinquish that power to those

Who believe that the human heart can be melted

(down) into fine-worked threads of reversible passion;

To those who believe that pain can heal, that a name--

Called blindly out one heavy summer night--

Can reel you in from the depths of your abyss

Haul me back from the gilded edges of insanity

Call you home.

Now in my reflection I see only

Your defection. My perfection.

The seven years of bad luck have long ago run their sand out to the bottom of the timer.

Now the candle is out; now the darkness is come.