Voice from the Wood by Jacqueline West
“I am one who has no tale to tell:
I made myself a gibbet of my own lintel.”
—The Inferno
Anonymity in this.
Hands, a house.
Only the things
that most men have.
What will you keep
in your own mind,
tiny pocket to hold
a refugee’s lifetime?
Tinder and a match.
The letters of your name.
No admissions dug up
from the burnt soil,
no last gift. Sometimes
there is nothing to spare.
This is the starving season,
the edge of final frost
before the green stirs,
before promises
are kept. Sometimes
we are only as much
as our weight.
Do you remember
still the smell of moss?
The feel of the live fish
that slipped through
your fingers? You think
you hear music,
a trumpet call in the wind
that traces the shell of your ear
before that, too, is gone,
and gravity forgives.
Don’t worry. No one
will know you here.