Black Space

For Erna Brodber Be ye my fictions; But her story. — Richard Crashaw I can bring a halo into the night cave, quiet with music (do not ask the music), to her shaded there in the moon; her fine spectacles steam their pond rings; her animal eyes fix on the lintel of the door as the wax owl glances back at me. I am her little cotton tree the breeze combs white into a final note, her diminuendo poco a poco ... Moon-afro, myself outpaces me in wonder of her. She goes off and I seep under the black sprout of her house, to rise a salmon bell on the hill dissolving mild cloud fractals, without grief or malice.