Laura Sheahen

SCOTTISH LEGEND

A one-eyed woman
Who sees half her body in mirrors
In her husband’s glance
Rides out on a one-eyed horse
As a one-eyed dog trails behind

And she is advancing

Towards a clan of men bearing banners
Ripped in two
Who stand firm on one foot
On a shorn-away mountain
Under a half moon

Everything has parted for her
And from her
Sheep scurry away on two legs

But in the distance
A singular cliff
A sea indivisible
One fast fall
And her sight will be whole

Laura Sheahen lives in Cambodia and works in humanitarian aid. Her poems have been published in Orbis, In Posse Review, Dream Catcher, the Manhattan Review, and other journals. One of her poems was recently read aloud on the audio blog Whale Sound.