Bones, Feathers, Blood
My father calls me towards him,
and asks me
to examine his suffering.
I perceive it with my keen eye,
and he frowns
when I offer what I might do
to make it better.
I enter his house
with a rag to clean the window –
it's dazzling outside
after all. But he asks
for a fellow to despair alongside him.
I think I am offering
a glass of clear water,
but he asks for spoiled bread.
I have learned three ways
of caring for the wretchedness in me.
I have fed the animal of it
until it opened its mouth
and welcomed me under its gleaming teeth.
I offered it my arm, and it left a gash at the elbow.
I offered it my ear, and it sucked it right off my skull.
I offered it my jaw, which it cracked like a walnut
and my molars fell out like loose dimes.
I did this for years
before realizing its appetite is endless.
Loving an animal
is different
than letting it eat you.
The second time,
I exiled it to the ends of the earth.
I did not see it or name it,
but its murky form remained.
Hidden in shadow,
it lunged at those closest to me,
aiming to banish them too.
The third time, I sat beside it
and whispered: let's be here for a while.
Its black fur draped over my arm.
I didn't pull anyone close to us.
This was my task
and my task alone.
I felt myself split into three.
I approached myself then,
and bowed at my own feet.
I offered her bones, feathers, blood.
The dark beast took them cautiously,
tenderly,
lay them under her belly
as a warm bed.
I enter my father's house.
I hold a rag to the window
and a glass of clear water.
My heart is broken.
What is the truest thing I could say?
“The days will grow more gentle. /
Everything forms a circle in you. /
One day
all that poisons you will die
and you will find the medicine
by your own hand.”
Kelsey Britton (she/her) is a botanist and hedge witch living in Oregon. She is on a life-long quest of finding the mystical in the ordinary. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Wild Roof Journal, Eunoia Review, The Fem, and About Place Journal.