qarrtsiluni

by Lori Witzel

*

In a barn in P———– in spring

What happened here is this—the long
smell of the sacking and the engine oil
across the many years and the scrape
of the concrete on my writhing back
and the throat-blocked voice breathing stop
and the plea HELP scratched into a timber
by my adored mouth and the roar of a tractor
after lunch across the fields and some brave bird
coming to the tree to herald spring as we
by its music are dragged across the gritted floor
our hips rising and twisting and sunlight
of March quality striping the gaps at the edges
of the vertical banded doors and this—what
is it—apprehension of a shotgun death flitting
across the mind as the farmer hoists to his shoulders
my white wintered legs and denies me life
and channels into me his own shoaling river
and calls me beautiful beautiful beautiful
and kneels like the crucifix of a weathered man
with ankles in his hands which move as if salting meat.

by Mikey Delgado