Swan / Princess

by Jane Yolen

1

When the change came

she was sitting in the garden

embroidering an altar cloth,

thin gold thread working the crown of Christ.

First her neck

arching like cathedral vaultings.

Dress rippling at the shoulder accomodated wings:

white-vaned, white-feathered like Oriental smocking.

Hands and feet tangling into orange legs,

inelegant, powerful as camshafts.

When her head went, she cried,

not for pain, but for the loss

of her soft, thin lips

so recently kissed by the prince.

Not even the sweet air,

not even earth unfolding beneath her

recompensed for those lost kisses

or the comfort of his human arms.

2

When the change came

she was floating in the millpond,

foam like white lace tracing her wake.

First her neck shrinking,

candle to candleholder,

the color of old, used wax.

Wings collapsed like fans;

one feather left,

floating memory on the churning water.

Powerful legs devolving;

Powerul beak dissolving.

She would have cried for the pain of it

had not remembrance of sky sustained her.

A startled look on the miller's face

as she rose, naked and dripping,

recalled her to laughter,

the only thing she had really missed as a swan.