Sir Perceval II

Sir Perceval II

Perceval sets off the morning after Pentecost, riding devotedly.
    All the men had left their splendid hall this way (all the other men,
    he reminds himself, he too, a man) setting after the new knight
    the new strange bright knight, on his strange bright fool’s-errand
    splitting off on strange bright roads, one by one, no maidens
  	no mothers no recognition when their roads cross, all deaths innocent

if you die years on, new armor, new shields— killing is innocent
if you don’t recognize the man you kill, the quiet devotee
made quieter beneath your blade. Made very quiet for his sisters
who wait, wait, wait for words. Men don’t explain themselves. Men
don’t ask questions. A new helmet, and they’re fooled
into killing you, or just forgetting to ask who you were, before a knight.

So he doesn’t recognize Sir Galahad, the new, strange knight
when their paths cross and Galahad strikes him down, innocent
or pretending to be, not looking at Perceval, in the dirt like a fool
where Galahad left him. Perceval is immediately devoted
to catching and smiting whoever smote him, whatever cold man
caught him. So what if it takes a writhing borrowed warhorse, a maiden’s

gift horse’s mouth full of sharper shapes than it should be? a maiden’s
awful churning animal, to chase and smite the stranger knight?
He’s had worse gifts. He’d never asked, about the Grail, and like a man
never asks who the maiden is. The devil’s horse tries to drown him. The coast is innocent
to any mortal touch until he washes up on the island’s beach, harebrained devotee,
saint sun-stroke’s fire in every nerve, and it’s the devil, then, who brings him water.

The devil says he’s a handsome fool. He thinks, maybe the armor has her fooled.
The devil’s fingers crawl upon his wrist, a pleasant touch, a maiden’s
pleasant game. “Red Knight,” she says, her voice like his own, “sweet devotee, oh,
sweet young knight, belong to me,” and God’s austere hands close upon the Red Knight.
He is not his own gift to give, even if the devil looks in his mouth. His innocence
and assent all burn her as the sun burned him. She withdraws, and he can search again.


Galahad finds Perceval instead. He strides across another shore to the limping man
(Perceval, limping from the new wound in his left thigh, slow-healing apology for being foolish,
for wanting the devil— for recognizing her). Thinking it an older pain, he apologizes innocently.
“God’s hands guide me. You stood in the way,” he says, posture somehow maidenly.
He moves wearily. God’s hands press like midday in his mind, gravely burdened grail knight.
Perceval can’t stay angry. Galahad was never angry to begin with. Theirs is a shared devotion.

Galahad kisses Perceval when they part ways, not the way you’d kiss a maiden.
Perceval kisses Galahad when they cross paths, the way knights kiss knights,
whatever that is, and Galahad kisses Perceval in the end again,
(grail’s holy light bleeding from his mouth)
				     tasting like sea salt, like a reliquary, like devotion.

[end]