Of Thick Night and Keen Knife

Of Thick Night and Keen Knife

Art
Kim Salac
Media Staff

Out damned spot

 

You stay on my fingertips,

Fingertips stained with the blood of blackberries

 

In the space under my fingernails

A smell sweet but faded

 

Your sharp juice doesn’t leave my tongue

Even though wafer after wafer I consume

 

I squeeze your pulp like a fruit

Trying to dry you out, will you dry out?

 

In your thorns I am enveloped

Just as in your nectar, I drown. 

 

And when goes hence? 

 

On beds of liverwort and lichen

Thistle clambers under a rowan

 

Lady Althaea sings a winter song

A revelry in frost and silver

 

Clavicle taut under ghostly skin

A dagger plunged in frozen ground

 

What’s to be done?

 

The soothsayer opens his palms

For one who suffers the journey of no return