A Song of Ice and Lemon

The captain of the Lomond Warrior starts his spiel.
Have your passports ready, we're crossing the frontier.
Laughter.  We're cruising from low to highland.
A tourist's border, invisible anyway under water.

Ailsa the stewardess ignores him.  She's reading
A Song of Ice and Fire, Book One: A Game of Thrones.
Splayed, her thumb and forefinger hold down
clashing armies.  Her free hand twiddles her hair.

Crows flap from shoreline pines.  Ailsa hears
bowstrings shudder.  A thousand archers loose.
A forester’s chainsaw keens.  To her, a direwolf.
The bar is now open.  She pours coins into the till.

Harness jingles as knights canter into battle.
A cloud billows like a sail.  Ailsa dispenses
peanuts, Scotch and lager, reckons change.
Carries us in her caravel, princesses and kings.

William Stephenson


If you have any comments on this poem, William Stephenson would be pleased to hear from you.