Over To You - Estella
The old woman sits hunched like a spider,
Spinning bitter dreams from the great arm chair,
Ivory lace, frayed fine and soiled full foul,
Ceaseless inhabitation has shrunken.
Hair matted tight a web is woven strong,
Her nails broken, hooked and clawed pull the threads,
She is shriveled shrunk and crinkled in her mold.
Stale air hangs with her ages throughout the house,
Dust creeps through the cracks to form a carpet,
Mold peels plaster down from off once white walls,
But the clock is stopped with the turn of her mind.
The crumpled remains of a great feast planned,
Lay forsaken on a table in the room.
On that carven table will they lay her,
When dead in her betrayed array shrouded.
Yet still deformed life burns bright in that soul,
Projecting the image of a young girl.
"I offered him my heart, my fortune, all.
He wanted me not, yet he courted me well.
He is delayed, believe not I’m betrayed,
Ever will I wait, in white thus arrayed;
To wait is to come to hate, now too late."
The woman fell, tripped by dusty trains trailing,
Hand out to her other self she cried out:
“Oh I am tired! Pity my troubles…”
The struggle complete, on the table she lay.
NOTE:
In Dicken’s classic novel, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Miss Havisham is jilted at the altar by her intended and spends the rest of her life locked away in her mansion wearing her wedding dress. She adopts young Estella to bring up as her daughter and teaches her to hate men.
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