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Tania Pryputniewicz


Mordred’s Dream: A Refusal

         (Mordred to his mother Morgayne)


I stand barefoot in the darkening woods.

Your horse bears down. His hooves crescent


the dirt, casting rinds of Earth on my feet

as he circles, one more animal bent


to your will. From muscled halves

of his chest, heat radiates. Your slight


boot and rim of cloak skim my cheek.

I’m no hunter, mother, nor simple quarry, nor witch


like you. Guinevere paces her battlements

at dawn when Arthur’s gone, just a girl


in pale slippers like falcon hoods,

so lethal, so light. Were I to be mortally


wounded, would Avalon’s ferry

halt for me? Unsmiling in your saddle


above, a planetary cold in your eyes,

you begin your fade; outlines of oak trunks


reassemble in the air your horse occupied,

the rowan fringe of your lips.

From November Butterfly, by Tania Pryputniewicz (Saddle Road Press, 2014). Front page author photo by Irene Young.

Tania Pryputniewicz’s debut poetry book, November Butterfly, is forthcoming November 2014. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is the Managing Poetry Editor at The Fertile Source. Her poems have appeared in Linebreak, The Mom Egg, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Tiny Lights, and elsewhere. Her award-winning micro movies feature poetry paired with the photography of Robyn Beattie and the music of Stephen Pryputniewicz. Her micro movie version of “Mordred’s Dream” can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6enIIyYC1BQ. Her introduction on making micro movies can be found at www.taniapryputniewicz.com/?p=271. She lives in San Diego, California.


— posted July 2014

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