A River for Ophelia by Danny Daw

"I do not know whether she’s held there gently"

A River for Ophelia

by Danny Daw

after John Everett Millais’ “Ophelia”

In the Tate, before we are married, before
the days you are moored in our bed, I enter 
another gallery, each painting a window 
to another world. The crowd streams around
 
the room, a steady flow across the art
stacked on each wall. But I am snagged
at Millais: the gnarled log jutting out over
the river, a flower crown floating a ways below
 
its intended head, and the bed of moss cradling
Ophelia in a wet, soft stasis. I love this one, you
say, drifting beside me. My favorite play, too. 
I do not know whether she’s held there gently, 
 
the moss keeping her cool and still, or if the river
will soon carry her off, first behind large reeds
primed to hide her pale face before, at last,
she arrives at the point of her own discovery,
 
eventually pulled from the river, dried, and buried.
But the biggest questions are her hands, upturned
toward the sky, and the flowers that seem to spill
from her grip in slow succession. For whom
 
were you braiding the crown, Ophelia, if not
yourself? And what is it your hands drift toward?
Some days, I look out on the water and think
I see your phantom face reflected on smooth
 
stones, your auburn hair in a tangle of bowing
branches, the dim glow of your dress beneath
fallen petals. Some days, a line will flash in my head:
The grave’s a fine and private place… / But none…

Some days, I wake first; I roll over and embrace
you like a bed of soft moss, careful not to wake
you. I slide my hand in yours, curling my fingers 
around your upturned palms. We stay like this
 
until the alarm rings us to the next doctor. I rest 
my head on your chest, listen to the slow murmur 
of rivers coursing through you, and squeeze a little 
tighter to keep you from being carried away.