Running through woods in Ithaca, miles from where you were.
Lateness of the hour causing a stumble; a torso disinterred and
blood trickling in a messy pool. You lying there prone to a
Southern wind-chill, knocking pales of air.

Through facing up through a veiled mist, brushing earthly sediments
from your eyelids, here Tirawa just sitting, turning carp on a skewer,
embers rubbing salt through her scales.

Thoughts of a child he reads, sewn into origami sinew.
Fragile paper boats bobbing up and down, some with
long held dreams written in the margins,
submerge below

the skin of the lake. Other scribbles hidden in your rhesus;
reflections of other selves walking paths you may have chosen.
Their sails soiled by an anxious humidity,
half capsized hulls taunting the mind.

Still spread on the over soil, Tirawa extends a hand
for a hungry soul. Splitting the browned carp along the
sides. Spinal breakage, incensed fumes by the tempered
coals, a solemn prayer with head drawn to the sky.
Eating morsels of flesh through your famished lips.

Drowsy now'¦ you have already made your bed tonight.
The Sun; nature's guiding hand wades though the lake
picking up each crepe' boat in turn.

Stroking each piece and breathing through the
seams and a muttering of incantations, seams of a sheaf
unfurl wings, the resurrections fly
to their own time and place.
You have let them go.

Robins perched rising with your heaving breast.
Their absorbent unders, wiping your battled scars.
A nod is what he gives seen fading afar,
chasing the East for another night.

You rouse planting your steps on soil.

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