The Shelter Wood
Ending ten nights
on blue tile and sarissa,
I crushed rosemary
to my face
sitting in a circle
under the shelter wood.
Thrilled to enter
the darkness again,
I was altered
like my finest garment
to become right
and unneeding redress.
The new moon rested half
in the black cover
I drew to conclude
a hiding into the other,
I mistook the silence
for the telling of voices.
John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Crisis Chronicles Press published his most recent chapbook, White Vases.