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Ethel

Ethel

And We Are Far From Home: Poems for Our Flag Means Death

by
Catherine Rockwood
Catherine Rockwood (she/they) reads and edits for *Reckoning Magazine*, and reviews books for *Strange Horizons*. Her first chapbook *Endeavors to Obtain Perpetual Motion* is also published by Ethel, to whom with thanks this ship's biscuit full of interesting insects, and a pirate flag made entirely of tiny dresses. You can find more of Catherine's poems in *Bad Lilies, Coffin Bell Journal, The Ilanot Review, Rogue Agent Journal*, and elsewhere, and intermittent short fiction in places like *Antipodean SF* and *Corvid Queen*. They blog very occasionally at https://strawberriesandbacon.wordpress.com
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from And We Are Far From Home

The Song of the Rapier

I was the needle, I made my way through.
I fastened linen, brocatelle, satin, together for you.
I was many, a beautiful swarm, but you saw few.

I gathered myself together. I, forged anew.
I was sharp in your daughter’s hand, a toy that flew
whistling at murder. You pined, while I sang true.

I was the wedge, I was the axe that hewed
fissure by fissure this deck from the trees that grew
whole, until they learned the idea of you.

I was skewer and blade. I was the span that knew
who wanted, who strove, who struggled to approach you.
Who fell back, bleeding, and what they were driven to do.

Now when you take me up, we are no longer two.
Like Love and Death, we extend one touch that wounds.