Writing season
Storks circle
in a hundred sky-high miniatures
the bush fire rages:
summer heat, South Africa.
The swifts are in:
Palm swift, Little swift, Horus
‒ cutting air-paths.
There’s nothing I can say
any longer, I suspect:
I am a smoke voice
in the winds, signifying fire,
smoke-smell, but not the thing
itself. I am a door, opening
on a hinge to nowhere,
and no-one stands to knock.
Once, under anaesthetic,
they cut my body:
I woke up bloody, and hurt.
It took weeks of blood-smell
and pain before I felt
right. Now the wound
is in my very flesh and being:
the swifts swoop close,
the storks circle in.
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