A BURIAL

 

They were buried sitting upright

She was in his lap; his arms around her waist.

The man was given cleated hel-shoes

To make easier his march into death.

The woman was not; it was presumed

She'd ride in a wagon pulled by dead horses. 

Archaeologists think they'd each been given 

A pouch filled with foreign coins

Though the woman wound up with both

Because even dead witches have their tricks.

A spear was thrown into the grave just before

The dirt was shovelled back in to say

"Your way is forward; do not return."

SALT

 

For love of my mother, her step-grandmother Jenny

Shook herself into something like she'd been

And made a last and very beautiful loaf of bread

To celebrate my mother's firstborn, my brother.

No one could figure out how this long loaf

Had fit in Jenny's small oven nor how

Such swollen, stiff fingers had braided the dough

Into a masterpiece of the baker's art. Age, though,

Spitefully tripped Jenny up. Baking is a dance.

But when the music said "reach for the salt

And throw in just enough of it" her mind wandered.

There was no salt in the bread at all. It was beautiful. 

It was inedible. Had their just been some salt

My brother's life, I think, might have been different.

RISING

 

When Ragnorak comes, says Snòrri,

Roosters will desert their farms

And crow in graveyards until

We dead folk wake up. It's not quite clear

What our role's meant to be; the scheduled battles

Seem mostly to involve gods and monsters. 

It may be we're to fight the heroes

Who've been training for centuries in Valhalla 

Or the b-team heroes from Freya's Hall.

If so, don't bet on us; we're not the ones

Who got buried in armor with swords and war-axes

And spears and seaxes and shields

With twisty dragons painted on them.

Perhaps we're meant just to watch,

Making a knowledgeable comment now and then

"Well hammered, Thor! Nicely bitten, Fenris!

Ooh, bit of bad luck there, Odin!" 

If roosters try to wake me I mean

To throw a shoe at them and go on being dead.

PICTURE

 

Yes, we know that we

Are Tragic Lovers

Whose Unfortunate End

Is Inevitable. Still,

There's no reason we

Cannot pause to watch

The sunset and have

A quiet smoke together.

ASSESSORS

 

Five of your old teachers have summoned themselves

From the darkness -- two women, two men 

And a kirk grim who is both and neither and, disguised

As a mouse-brown woman with sharp eyes, taught literature

In a girls' boarding school. They are, of course, discussing you;

Almost you can hear their words. They seem to be set

For a long session, lolling or sitting up too straight

In comfortable chairs. Two of them have a chess game going.

They've all apparently been watching you closely

One of them leans forward, as he always did

And holds one hand flat, tapping his palm

With two fingers of his other hand as if some truth

Will skitter away unless he nails it down with smaller truths.

The kirk grim shrugs and grins -- what a lovely

Yet in the end irrelevant truth. She's waiting her moment

To tell a lie worth all the truths in the world.

THE REASON WHY

 

The three great Norns are named

Was, Is, and Will Be but, while master weavers,

They don't weave the lives of ordinary folk.

This is left to crowds of smaller norns;

Some of them well-skilled but many

Just muddling along, barely knowing

A warp from a woof. This is why, like as not,

Your fate has loose threads and perhaps

A patch or two, snipped from another's destiny

And sewn on with huge, uneven stitches.

CIRCUMSTANCE

Wrapped so heavily against the cold
I no longer know which one of us I am.