Poems (Forrest)/The taffetas cloak

by Mabel Forrest

THE TAFFETAS CLOAK

A taffetas cloak on an old peg hangs,
 Cowslip-coloured as dairy cream,
Yet it seems to me as a body swinging
 To and fro from an oaken beam;
Such sombre secrets a touch awoke
In the dust that came from a woman's cloak.

A finger of light has found the attic;
 It moves, to point like a seeking sword
Where a rose of silk at the throat is fastened,
 Looped across with a satin cord,
And passes down to a clasp of paste
That played the shield to a rounded waist.

There's a tiny stain on one shimmering shoulder,
 Brown as the leaf of a summer fled—
Was it ever vivid, and wet, and spreading,
 Red on the cloak as a bloom is red?
Was it ruddy wine when the Mad Hours ride,
Or the point of a rapier turned aside?

In the taffetas cloak a spider crouches:
 I saw the twitch of his hairy legs,
And he seemed as the soul of a long-dead woman
 That out of the grave-clothes creeps, and begs
That the taffetas cloak be left to hide
The price she paid for her laughing pride!

I can see from the open attic window
 A new green leaf on a tall tree's crest,
And the mottled wings of a bird, adventuring
 Into sun from a fresh-built nest,
While the loosened dust from each silken fold
Dissolves in blue like a mist of gold.