M. Dubois’ Dreams
Day is a blown clock, its last wisps ceding to horizon.
Heron’s doppelgänger floats belly up on the lake;
night, laid like a thousand year egg, breaks over her.
The stir of wings whispers a prayer for earthly things;
the quench of warm blood, a slake of cold flesh.
Life trembles in the foreshadow.
Clair de la lune, pale and wan, gets up for her shift
slips sedulously through the wards of Haute-Garonne.
M. Dubois, feeling salty, leans from his window, inhales
the incense of pine making its pitch for the night,
deliquesces in the moist air. Tomorrow, the sun
with make her round; Sœur Paludier’s cœur chaud
will pull him together with her lousse à fleur.
He sleeps like the dead in sea-rocked dreams,
tentacle-gripped, bladder-wracked, constrained
like a woman in whale-bone. M. Dubois washes up
on the beach of dawn, crusty with fleur de sel.
He has never seen the sea.
Today, M. Dubois will furrow a brow of earth
turn its dark matter to gold, inhale
the empirical aura of its life support.
Tonight, he will lean from his window.
Night will break like a thousand year egg,
its yoke weighing heavy on his creaking frame.
The heron will soar like a soul released,
he will whisper a prayer for earthly things.
lousse à fleur – a rake used by a Pauldier for gathering fleur de sel
Stella Wulf has a deep love of the natural world and a passion for politics, and the human condition—themes that she explores in her poetry. Her work is widely published. Her pamphlet, After Eden was published by 4Word Press.