Sir Perceval

Sir Perceval

Perceval gets too tall early on, a loose-limbed innocent
	sprawling out of dresses, nowhere near the modest maiden
	his mother hoped to cultivate, hoping somewhat foolishly—
	his father had lived and died a knight
	his brothers were dead men, too.
	Better to raise a girl, she thought, or failing that, an animal.

He creeps from their small house, like an animal
seeking sustenance, hungry in its innocence.
To an animal, it first parses as death to overhear men.
(then he thinks they are angels, long hair like maidens)
Men’s voices bring devils to mind before they do knights
but knights are handsomer than God, he thinks, wide-eyed fool.

His mother’s mouth twists down to tell him he’s a fool
spitting out the word like she’s talking to an animal.
He had thought she would be happy to hear about the knights
handsomer than God, who had instilled a nameless want in him, frenzied innocent
recognition of another self, maybe, less listless than a daughter—
she says he will wear what she dresses him in, if he leaves with these men,

and dresses him as something unlike a daughter, or a man
in layers of frivolity, because “it’s better to be made a fool
than make a fool of yourself,” she says, grieving mother to a maiden,
to a doll which does not pain her to look upon, a painted animal.
So it’s in a fool’s clothes that he first draws another’s blood, half-innocent
clumsy strike spilling bone and brains in the man’s red armor, dead Red Knight.

Sir Perceval’s red armor makes him a second Red Knight
once he has scrubbed the first Red Knight out. He is taught by a man
who says, that’s good enough. Who offers to solve his innocence.
He learns, then, soon enough. Speaking out of turn is foolish.
Asking questions is foolish. It’s best to be a quiet animal,
he learns, without words for pain, like he’s at mass, like a maiden

in a sense, again, though this is not a vigil kept by maidens,
this austere and ghastly castle, this young Red Knight
guest to a bleeding king he cannot find words or pity for, this mute dog
watching a bloody spear, a platter, the head of a man
carried aloft in vile procession by parading suffering fools
for a man hurt by men, by silence— he would rather remain innocent

of how men could hurt a man,
of how he’s always been someone’s silent fool,
of how the emptiness laid upon him isn’t anything like innocence.

[end]