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Coleen
Shin
....a stay of elocution
There are questions on my answering machine-
Hope is buried in the garden, I'll know nothing till
spring.
Though winters are not bad here as they are goose miles
north
they are dirty and wet, clouds slung low in damp sheets.
Where the creek cuts through the tangle of woods
there is fog that climbs the steep banks, hides the
gnarled knuckles
the slippery shards of dead wood. I have fallen there,
disappeared
crouched liked a startled hare, to examine my wounds
to listen to the steady unbroken gloom that clothes me.
Blood was the only bright spot in it, that cold day
welling in warm bubbles along the shallow stuttering
scratch
then paled in the distracted sweep of the palm of my
hand.
I remember wishing for a dry cave if only to leave a
print there.
I am never lost in these woods, never insecure
they require nothing of me, except perhaps more careful
scrutiny of her lay, a working compass, a quiet face.
No questions requiring sudden change, movement away
choices I choose not to make, though in the avoidance of
a choice is made, a trap sprung , a clever, clever
manipulation.
One day I will invite the chattering mechanical voices
here, to soothe
them, to quiet and appease them. So they might know me
finally,
without prejudice. That is my hope, but hope is buried
in the garden.
Mind now only the long cool days of winter. I'll know
nothing till spring.
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