Fugitive

Marie Luhrs

She is frail and changeful and cold.
When lightning cuts the sky
I hear her tapping:
"Let me in, let me in!"
I hear her laughing in the little sound
Of water lapping,

And she cries with the drawing of a bow
Across a violin.
Her footprints flower
And she bends the pliant poplars;
She whips a shower
Of foam from the waves,
And I see her young white face in a crowd.
Yet for all that I pursue her,
I have nothing.
I am tired, I am bowed.