Sometimes, in ninth-month want, the only green
to slake mouth's need is rampion from a witch's garden
and the only path to follow, is the one my mother tread.
Fat-bellied as a tick in June, hectic with the heat, I ached for bitter
fiddleheads, dreamed of harebell's kin. Child, you were tendered for a moment's comfort,
but the coin I palmed was hollow ribs, a month of milk-fever, and your father gone,
gall hemming his tongue.
For twelve years, in cottage and cow boose, I warm myself
in the stink of animals, tup and hound. I pluck the iron that
laces my lice-cropped locks, lap porridge and possets from
cracked hands. I recall ivory walls, work tallow and cornsilk
into a poppet of your image. I watch for sky-signs to show
me the way.
I find you in blued hours, whisper incantations,
watch for her face, like the sickle moon, at your window.
Useless as spavined dray, I keep to the unlight of shadows,
cast seeds of you on rumors wind, feed bruit of you to boys who grease
their escutcheons with dreams of yellow hair and towered maids.
With my left hand I proffer cakes of mandrake and briony,
watch them scramble for your window to hoist themselves
on ladders of hair. Your body will answer, as mine did, fruiting your downfall
with sweat, and moans, and some clever lad with cunning fingers.
And I will wait by the door, bathe myself in vervain and plait my hair
the way she taught me, rubbing it with chamomile and candlewick plant
until even my whisket glows gold.