BLOOD-LEAF

I am red as blood-leaf.

My roots go down deep

Into the singing earth:

Into the rain dead shadows

Of the underworld,

Where rocks are scorched

Charcoal grey

And the cold sinks bones

Into jellied yesterdays.

The child I carry on my back,

Petrified in permafrost,

Will not thaw in these hot hands.

I cast a web of lines

Into the river.

Silver hooks pierce

The woman-flesh

Of passive fish:

Their big eyes

Full of weary sorrow,

Just like my mother’s.

My father breathes out

A sour haze:

Spinning my skin

In a taut tizz

Of anxiety.

Heavy as a cadaver,

He leans his weight on me.

Trembling with urgency,

He whispers:

Kill it...

Kill it dead”.

The blood-leaf

Curdles inside me:

Its shallow shadow

Slipping through

A sift of skin.

The tides ululate

To the dance

Of the moon;

And I am assaulted

By the shivering child

I carry on my back.

The knife is keen.

It pares the flesh

To a feather of bones

And lets loose

A red cascade

Of forgotten viscera.

There’s a poetry

In unadulterated violence:

Cut with raw speed,

It bleeds you

Of all indifference.

But it is not enough,

My father says;

And I must kill it dead,

Kill it dead again.

The blood-leaf twists me:

An opiate spume

Dribbles from my wounds.

I am lost now

To dreams of healing,

But doomed to carry

The child on my back

Another mile.

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