The Shilling and the Princess

Even now, I still remember
the pleading bribery
in my mother’s eyes as she held out
the piece of silver in her palm—

A way figured out of the stress
of taking me down to Georgetown
to see the England-princess
in my unfinished dress.

“Which you prefer, to see the princess,
or a Whole Shilling for yourself?”
At six years old I took the silver
and betrayed the reality of it all—

The heaving crowds behind the barricades;
the cantering white horses; school children
waving little replicas of the British flag
(some fainting I later heard)

After she left I took to my not-unhappy
fetal curl and watched the moon—
my substitute mother—come up
from behind the darkening trees.

Moon, now full and mantling,
(though sometimes a distant silver)
Moon who must enhance
her glory—by spinning

The light of her own story—
and telling it, the way I am, back to you.