Rubies glint on the sill in the light of the sun--

A light she'd once seen through miles of murk.

"Happily ever after" she heard herself say,

While her stranger of a husband prepared for his work. 

She was a woman--a queen, no less

There was no time for dreaming, they said. 

But although she had learned to breathe in their air,

She still felt she was drowning instead.

She remembered a throat once ballooning with hope

A voice that pulsed with her youth and her glee

But even now, knowing her words had returned

She knew that her voice still sang through the sea. 

The sun was less brilliant than blinding, she'd learned, 

And her hair less ruby than pearl.

So under the more familiar moon, 

She returned to the ocean, to her family and home--

And discovered the song of a girl.