Two Wives

TALES OF WOMEN

TWO WIVES

Small comfort is there or peace in a house

When its upright head

Is a man with dual wives-one living,

And the other dead.

The one-way river Emma had crossed

Three years before,

But her presence clung like a hungry gull

To the hither shore.

And Nora knew it-Nora alone-

All too well.

But one who sees invisible things

Must never tell.

"You're a dusky elf, little Nora," said John;

"My Emma was fair."

The sudden shadow was substance to Nora

Back of his chair.

"You're shy-elusive and wild as a fawn,

But Emma was still

And strong." The wind was a slippered sigh

Across the sill.

March, like a princess, came that year,

Mary %. Elmendorf

All silver and slow

Out of a moody sky that held

Remembrance of snow.

Bells clinked in the brooks, and green furred buds

Peeped timidly through

The tingling boughs, and a promise stirred

In Nora, too.

"Emma, Emma-what now?" And Nora's

Heart was torn

With a new strange fear: "Can anyone hate

A child unborn?"

Pale eyes punctured her sleep and tainted

Her days with dread;

And when the walls of her house closed in,

Nora fled.

Brief was the letter she left for John,

Wavy of line

And blurred: "I can fight no more-her will

Is stronger than mine."

That night fell heavily black, thick-thistled

With wind and sleet;

And the stones of the uphill road were sharp

To tender feet.

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They found her at midnight, dazed and wan

As a laggard flame.

John carried her gently home. At dawn

Her girl-child came.

"See, John," she breathed, "her eyes are blue

As the pale larkspur

And her skin is dark . . . two women

Are blended in her."

Back from the brink of the one-way river

To the babe in its bed

Dimly a moment she struggled: "Name her

Emma," she said.