‘If you wish, sire,’ he says at last, and some forgotten part of your heart howls in triumph.
3
Other
the forest is rain on moss and rotting leaves,
bright fresh scents away from the smoke
and the heady human smell of wine and rich food
that nags at memory –where was I?– a snare
the shape of borrowed clothes on lost skin
and music in a mind that has no word for song.
discordant with itself, lost in a castle –
the king– the song twists –when I was me
when I was whole I was at the castle
and the king– becomes forest-sharp,
becomes a hunger like being unmade,
pulling apart a body newly created.
it begs to run from a place unknowable,
and the hunger is a gnawing thing,
a beast in itself, guiltless and bloodied.
small deaths, sheep deaths, swift and simple
as the scent of iron. tomorrow the debt,
tonight the loss and the hunger and the blood.
walking a wolf’s track leaves a wolf’s prints,
sure as winter –this is not me this is not
what I am meant to be– sure as hunger,
no way around it but to run and running
is a kind of death with all that falls behind.
but sometimes there’s nothing, no choice
but movement, no whisper but teeth,
and every heartbeat murmurs run
and run
