I will go into the enchanted garden.

I will peer behind leaves and lift the soft petals of flowers to find the faeries that used to hide there; should still be there; never left. Like a little sister I will tiptoe across wet grass with damp baby-blue toes; rise gently on high arches; be molded by the magick air into a still sculpture of some forgotten nymphian frame.

here we never grow old. Here the boys are beautiful and the girls have eyes like wild fawns, unafraid. We move through shrubbery and we mark our foreheads with the sign of the Hunt. Here we sing the ancient songs and they do not stick in our mortal throats like knots.

elsewhere there is a white boat and my other mother lies in it

waiting

guinevere neverwoken. the weeds cradle the oars, nestle between eyelashes.

the father? midas. he breathes, eyes wide open, at the bottom of the river. mouth parted in a silent 'o'

Am I innocent? i am. i paid the price back in the other world and they rigged the scales with the same stones they hurled at me in the square. From the arches of the cathedral I saw a ghostly Joan of Arc nodding at me. "you had nothing to die for and i am sorry for it." the red seeping through the front of her tunic. all too real for a phantom. from the ground a rough man in patchwork put a hand to his forehead and complained of strange rain.

"soon you will join me in the enchanted forest, sister"

where the butterflies move with a heavy lethargy; slink across the air with a silky friction. the trees breathe a weighty daze upon your thoughts; but from where you sink slowly pressed into the ground your nightgown still flutters like white tissue. the purest thing here,

lightest.

the damp dirt sucks at your fingers; pulls down your toes...the wet roots clamp around your ankles and the earth moans in its belly. a slow and heavy seduction. you would fight, but this is almost pleasurable. one with the moist peat. well, they wanted peace on earth. the moss knits its damp fingers over your closing eyes.

they will find your nightgown one day; the thirsty bowl of the forest floor having drunk deep of the rest of you

this is the story which you write yourself into to calm your troubled heart.