Persona Poem of the Shakespearean Witchnurse in A Winter’s Tale

Persona Poem of the Shakespearean Witchnurse in A Winter’s Tale

I think but of Apollo, his sunned
visage bright as second winter stars to
gaze upon, methinks my queen was his true
equal a like as like to God enthrone-
ed. O even as the fair and gentle
Dian beside her too as sweet maiden
ness can boast was she, were she, will she be
if these lips, cold as frost did melt under
mine then, my own earnest embrace, lips to
lips, anon buried we her corpse all in
velvet thick as her beauteous rust mane

How like Persephone she lay as one dead, yet
hope I ere some livered strength such as men
may claim, is hers to the hilt and like a
falcon, held on Deaths dark gloved hand

she might rise to behold her castle keep.

Elizabeth Upshur is a Black Southern storyteller, the Associate Poetry Editor for Okay Donkey Mag, and a Fulbright alumna. Her work can be found in Augur, Pretty Owl Poetry, and Red Mud Review. She is the inaugural winner of the Brown Sugar Lit Mag prize and recent Gigantic Sequins flash fiction winner. She tweets @Lizzy5by5.

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