A Married Kind of Silence

by Alison Craig

Listen. We said, I do.
A pretty contract.

And the birdshout of a balmy dawn
gives to this barked hill, this tree chatter.
Gives to muttering clay rain
in cool summer, water's silken eddies.
And we run together, peat brash.

And here, the stillness of a pool
thrumming green, what life unseen,
like the blood-pain of the woman.
That little acquittal strange to man.

But then, here, a clearing and I alone,
an edged invitation, maybe loveliness.
Would you bed me, dark? Can I
come to you there, my secret safe?

Now, hear. Grass seeds our bellies,
our joints moss-softened. Hold us,
sweet hollow. Let us crouch here, under
these branches, gentle friend, and seep softness.
But we are cold, our limbs ache.

At our feet, newly fallen, cones dry and old,
jewelled with tiny following eyes like guilt.
Layered time presses a terrine of reds, rust
and burnt umber and blood, day upon day fossilised.

We say, do you? This slowly,
brutally obliging union.

But go gentle, whisper words
in the tug of a breath. And look, see there?
Arms upstretched, taut with stilled grace
embrace tender moon.