Flight

From fathomless sleep in a tree's womb
she is plucked by a king's hunters.
With her smudged face and mangy cloak,
she's sent downstairs to polish boots
and have them thrown at her at will.
In cellar and scullery she dwells,
an invisible, slaving, no-thing —
a plight with only this benefit:
of allowing much time to pass
until misery felt in the mind,
in the body's every cell,
can be contemplated with clear eyes —
so water from a dark slipstream,
cupped by still hands, is entered by light.