Tristan and Iseult
after the manuscript miniature by
Évrard d'Espinques, 15th
century
She waves him off, at least for now,
While standing near the vessel’s bow.
She wears a crown, and he a hat.
Her countenance is rather flat;
He has a more contracted brow.
The vessel, almost like a plough,
Moves forward as the seas allow
Despite the current on-board spat:
She waves him off.
Without a potion to endow
The marriage she must soon avow,
She is not in the mood to chat.
But he, the ready diplomat,
Suggests things will work out somehow.
She waves him off.
Jane Blanchard of Augusta, Georgia, has recent work in The Lyric, The Main Street Rag, The
Robert Frost Review, and The Seventh
Quarry. Her collections include Never Enough Already (2021), Sooner or Later (2022), and Metes and Bounds (2023).
