DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Ophelia in Winter


from the drown, she rises
heavy bones soaked wings shorn she
tumbles into hips
onto ripples of hardwood

a barren land: she is not for the touching.

mostly she remembers the long purples
though rosemary runs a close second.
she is not allowed out in the rain
never a long hot bath.


she dreams of rooms where all windows face the river

*
she says scars give pain texture.
her favorite word: submerge.
she says when the lungs begin to fill
bite down,
blood, she says,
use it any way you can.

*
almost six feet from the ground
from the ground nonetheless
she undulates firm wisp of smoke from the mouth
from the mouth nonetheless
she tells me
secrets of water water like drums
and the sky a distant flame
down there she says
blood never leaves the body
she says the current kept her blood warm
at first
it was all blood warm skin.

                                 *
I am the one who watches her sleep,
making sure she remembers breath
she sighs little songs of posies: nonny nonny,
and I whisper a' down a' down;
sometimes she screams for her father
& I hold her scratched     wrists        tight.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.