Over stone walls and
barns,
miles from the black-eyed Susans,
over circus tents and
moon rockets
you are going, going.
You who have inhabited
me
in the deepest and most broken place,
are going,
going.
An old woman calls up to you
from her deathbed deep in
sores,
asking, "What do you keep of her?"
She is the crone in
the fables.
She is the fool at the supper
and you, sir, are the
traveler.
Although you are in a hurry
you stop to open a small
basket
and under layers of petticoats
you show her the
tiger-striped eyes
that you have lately plucked,
you show her
specialty, the lips,
those two small bundles,
you show her the
two hands
that grip her fiercely,
one being mine, one being
yours.
Torn right off at the wrist bone
when you started in
your
impossible going, gone.
Then you place the basket
in
the old woman's hollow lap
and as a last act she fondles
these
artifacts like a child's head
and murmurs,
"Precious. Precious."
And you are glad you have given
them to
this one for she too
is making a trip.