Three Divinations

i. CROMNIOMANCY

(divination using onion sprouts; to find out the name of a future husband the names of possible candidates were written on onions which were left on the altar on Christmas eve, then planted, the first onion to sprout indicated who it was to be.)

O father the light

here is difficult—low

and pointed

over the hills where you

high as a horse pretend

to bow to the other light

As I scar skins.

Spells in the capes

of the many selves, letter

on the knife, name wet

to the air, the winter

the color of the hare’s

Eggs laid not so long after

the longest night

of the year. Swelled

eye of the underground

blinked shut to the clinking

spade you make

In the dirt.

Blades fingering the clear

bone-morrow thin

as cellophane, as names

unhooded: green shoots

of thinnest spears.

ii. BELOMANCY

(divination by tossing or balancing arrows)

What she is supposed to do: pull

the pins and replace them

with stitches. Lead

the needle through her

throat to surface on the skin. Hem

folded over hem.

The thread like a lock

of hair the mother ties

with ribbon—blue bow pressed

beneath glass. Girl closed

in the memory, buttoned up

like a dress. The cloth

like a clock, hands folded within

and arrowed round to mark

her infinite points of entry.

iii. COSCINOMANCY

(divination using a hanging sieve and shears. This sort of divination is done to find a thief.)

When I woke

            my hand was the shape

                       of a key.

I opened the woods

            beyond

the cul-de-sac.

The light was bone; frost lived.

My throat, an old pipe;

            my voice, a corvine rattle;

                       the wind,

            a song of scissors

                       prying

the air.