Iseult, Tristan, and King Mark

[The last word pattern in the sestina:

ABCDEF

FAEBDC

CFDABE

ECFABD

DEACFB

BDFECA

ECA]

I.

Others embellish, I tell the truth.

I will relate the facts of the affair,

Of the trip to Ireland, of the comet's flash,

Of the captive princess escorted by the knight, 

Of the potion they drank that made their fates twinned,

And led them to their vine-entwined grave.

II.

First, though, I have a topic that is not grave.

I come from a line of writing Ohio women, and I want to speak their truth.

I am their successor, our destinies are twinned.

Was their writing--is mine?--more than a family affair?

They wanted more than the arms of a gentle knight, 

More than a damsel's beauty fading fast as a camera's flash.

III.

I think Iseult was a tease who liked to flash,

Though I truly loved her, I knew she was bound for the grave,

It was she who brought down my faithful knight,

I cannot lie, I will tell the truth,

It was she who wanted their fatal affair,

We share a wilfullness, in that trait we are twinned.

IV.

My uncle wrote a story where he and my mother were twinned,

It was a quick concoction, fiction in a flash,

Were he testifying, it would have been a felony grave,

Did his fictions arrive at a deeper truth?

Must one lie to get to the heart of the affair?

Does my tale of writing princesses need him as an errant knight?

V.

I found her sleeping in the woods next to my knight,

They lay intertwined, their bodies twinned,

I raised sword to slay them, then stopped.  I saw a different truth,

Rage gave way to calm in a flash.

To slay them was to dig my own grave,

I could not bless but would not curse their affair.

VI.

My mother's pen is stilled, her life now is a sad affair,

I must be her and her mother's and grandmother's and great-great-grandmother's paladin, their knight, 

Death has no final victory, words survive the grave,

In my family plot bodies and writing are twinned,

The sentences of the dead spark, sizzle, flash,

Bodies and words are co-equal truth.

***

With Iseult and Tristan I am twinned,

With my princess and my knight whom I saw in the woods by lightning's bright flash,

I am King Mark as well as Darcy and I always tell the truth.