Black Space

By Ishion Hutchinson

For Erna Brodber

Be ye my fictions; But her story.
— Richard Crashaw

I can bring a halo
into the night cave, quiet
with music (do not ask the music),

to her shaded there
in the moon; her fine spectacles
steam their pond rings;

her animal eyes fix
on the lintel of the door
as the wax owl glances back at me. I am her little cotton

tree the breeze combs
white into a final note,
her diminuendo poco a poco ...    

Moon-afro, myself
outpaces me
in wonder of her.

She goes off and I seep
under the black sprout
of her house, to rise

a salmon bell on the hill
dissolving mild cloud fractals,
without grief or malice.