the other day i was acting all normal
trying to sell scarves to people
in the run up to Christmas
so I’m folding them and i’m folding them
when I see outside
the felt dark rounds of the hills
the filigree of their ink black crowns
the way they have pressed themselves hungry exciting
into the gaping velvet of the night
my country.
then i heard her:
Now. she said
she’d come
the bone woman with the silver lasso
the one I have been finding and missing and
finding and missing my entire life
i stepped out from my station
and how the man
with the pashmina between his pale hands
was wanting to know do I wash it?
and i came out into the night
sloshing through the mud of the old farm yard
over the bent gate and straight up the hill
the black grass seething at my ankles
the cold air screaming in my eyes
the years of leaf lifting in their layers on the wind
laughing: a liturgy of what will not be named
i took her hand and together
we walked into the savage of my own heart:
yes I told her. Yes.
at whatever cost
i will know the only thing there is to know