GAIL WHITE has been writing poetry since she learned to print. She currently serves as a consulting editor to Light Poetry Magazine. Her latest chapbook, Paper Cuts, is available on Amazon, along with  books Asperity Street and Catechism. She lives in the Louisiana bayou country with her husband and cats. 

The Stricken Queens

Taking refuge from the rain

in the Museum of Scotland,

I found them unexpectedly:

the Isle of Lewis Chessmen.

Kings and bishops, knights,

a berserker biting his shield,

dignified, large-eyed, calm,

and then – the masterpiece –

two dismayed ivory queens.

Each holds a hand to her cheek

under a heavy crown

and gazes, pale and aghast,

into her private abyss.

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I think of Aud the Deep-Minded,

building a ship in a forest.

Grown rich in thinly-settled Iceland,

She will leave a wedding feast

to lie down and die.

I think of strong Gudrun,

four times married, a woman

powerful in revenge.

And what can a woman do –

after husbands, children, flight,

ambition, revenge –

but gaze dismayed at the past,

appalled at the future,

into her private abyss?