The Jeweled Sword of Offering, G. Younghusband; C. Davenport [1919], Wikimedia Commons. Edited with background and overly by Dionne Charlet on Bazaart.

Free verse of a woman

Canto de Espada

Song of the Sword

Her stance shifts
to wield and pique
as her thought slits
the challenge to still.

Lengths and tendrils
flare like strands
of the Andes
to siege and parry
in a whirl of taunt.