Joan Houlihan

Who kills my history knows it is buried in the same air ay breathe. Only a hair is needed to keep you, mother. Only a fit of bone. Comfort, comfort, ay am my own. Wanting simple, a sun like water, a flow and stir of air. Warm stone, black-warm, dirt scent and bird. Ay am put out to weather. Animal eyed me here—heaving, breathing over— felt by smell for me and loomed. Air shifted my hair as it neared and sniffed then left. Comfort, comfort me. A thresh of sticks and vine, hand-carried high—ay am my own weight carried by, kind horse, kind mother, gone.

She had a death in me, knees drawn up and my bowl and cloth rinsed through with her. As morning takes night, field closes the hare, and ay would burrow into her. Over the altar, catalpas rattle, shadow and bother the branch. Is this her white? Dress me. Her rain? Wash me with that. Her bowl? Feed me empty. Her colding? Ay am forgot. Then mask me the g’wen, hers skin being mine, and body that pools in the brine of her, rivers the silt and stone of her wrapt in the warm of hers fell. She were the watcher and tender of pyres when the wet grass shined with quiet and ay lean to the mouth hole:ay, mother.

A crush of oily plant and treated white, wrapt and reached by root, sky-touched and still, a bud in leaf: make of me a body. Oil me, hand and foot, bind me tight and scented green: this is my dressing, done. Ay lived and spoke to what ay was. No matter if you answer. On hand and foot an oil and scent. Across my forehead fingers sweep a clay. Remember what ay was and am. Kind horse, lie down beside.