← v9n2, Fall 2010
Poetry · Volume 9, Number 2

Ochre xxiii

My tunic—a painted chainmail of snails’ shells,

Hundreds, its beadwork my shroud & raiment.

Into the clay I’m lowered. Incantation & spell.

My brothers, sisters, parents.

The eyelids—

Open forever, to meet the afterlife awakened.

Crimson ochre hissed through hollow reeds

Covers my face; my eyes dazzle, I died young—

16, 18, ochre too rains down upon my pelvis,

Signifying death in childbirth. Beside the shoulders

My stillborn is placed,

a boy, & he’s gripping

An antler spearpoint longer than his torso.

The afterlife, the afterlife.

He’s cradled on a swan’s wing:

The gods’ white messenger, the feathered & disjointed pinion,

Which can’t be my wing since it is only one.