DARA
All right, let's say you could take a skull and break it
The way you'd crack a clock; you'd crush the bone
Between steel palms of inclination, take it,
Observing the wreck of metal and rare stone.
This was a woman : her loves and stratagems
Betrayed in mute geometry of broken
Cogs and disks, inane mechanic whims,
And idle coils of jargon yet unspoken.
Not man nor demigod could put together
The scraps of rusted reverie, the wheels
Of notched tin platitudes concerning weather,
Perfume, politics, and fixed ideals.
The idiot bird leaps up and drunken leans
To chirp the hour in lunatic thirteens.
-Sonnet: To Eva,
Sylvia Plath
Key 3. In the next card the Queen of Amber sat upon her silver moonbeam throne, and she wore pale blue and rose, a gown of sparkling silks and velvets, and upon her brow the Crown glittered, a thing of platinum and diamonds, all edges. But she herself radiated a strength with its own softness, a strength that was full, supple and fertile. Beneath the princess waist of her gown it seemed that her stomach swelled with life, and her eyes were kind, the warm brown of fresh earth. Her face was slightly freckled, the image of youth, her cheeks red and vital. A pool of silver water stretched out before her throne, and she pointed the toes of her bare feet to test it.
Queen Dara spent the past centuries consolidating her power base, discrediting her rivals and learning all the secrets and powers she could. Despite her many enemies, she is by the far the most powerful woman in the universe and her City, while lacking in liberty, is peaceful, clean and productive. She is expecting her next child, a daughter, within the month.