One night I can’t take it anymore

I wake up bathed in sweat, I pant

Suddenly I remember

everything

I’ve done to her

and I remember so clearly now where

I buried her after.

White wet shirt sticking to my hot skin

I glow pale as an iceberg in the dark as I

hit the floor and crawl across the cold wood to

hit the light – I feel sick to my stomach.

Time is of the essence

I hastily throw on a loose sweater

I grab a scarf slung carelessly 

across the chair and toss it round my neck, 

pull an old wool hat over my sleepy hair 

– I am going to need a good shovel

the ground is frozen it’s almost November,

my hands are shaking. I remember,

finally I remember

I stumble down the stairs and land

in the static warmth of the living room with

air so thick and dead and quiet I could cut it into pieces. 

I slam the door behind my shadow as I leave.

Now I run

I am a steel arrow diving head first into liquid cold

Suddenly I am without fear, I am fearless

the old house and the shed growing small

behind me as I shoot through the dark and ahead

a silent plain rolling endlessly towards the night.

My trajectory parts a world of knee-high blades

of frozen grass, cutting my calves, the taste of metal

in my mouth, my heart is pounding, my lungs ache

But I can see just an inkling–a gleam of dusty rose and peach luminously lining the edge of the world, the first Light of the day pouring golden over the rim into this boundless cup of ours as I make my way steadily

towards her grave.

I know exactly where it is

I don’t even have to check

I recognize the same naked patch of earth

and the same naked branches of a shivering shrub with

its red round winterberries standing starkly against

the crust of hardened snow. No one has been here in years,

This is the loneliest place I could have left her

A crime perfectly frozen in time. I sink down on

my knees as dusk and tears come gushing over me

and this godforsaken spot.

I dig for hours.

First I use the shovel.

I feel the wetness of hot sweat building up under my clothes, under my hat, I rip it off, damp hair sticking to my skin. I am a cloud of hot steam, a halo set on fire by the icy cathedral of a glorious day. I grow thirsty

– It’s not enough, she deserves better

I start using my bare hands

I tear the sharp earth open with my frozen fingers –

they go numb, they start to bleed I don’t care. The only 

thing that counts now 

is that I find her.

It’s almost noon and the winter sun

bleak as I finally feel the strange softness

of its touch –a dry and brittle

single

strand of hair.

No –

I mustn’t desert her now I 

mustn’t despair I need 

to do this I owe this to her – and so

I fight the urge to throw up I lower my pace

With loving precision I go on brushing

earth’s thick weight 

at last

away

Today

I give her what she should have gotten

I excavate her

I retrieve her

All soil has to go!

I want to see fully 

what I have done.

But 

I stop dead in my tracks as I see –

I see how young

she looks, how perfect, and how perfectly intact.

Her skin entirely unmarked by earth’s voracious tongue;

her features icebound – found exactly as they were,

yet somehow ripened by the saturated wealth of

rotten underground. It is as though the winters 

had preserved her perfectly out on this plain. I stare 

in awe at every dimple, every lash and every 

perfect vein. 

If anything, she is more beautiful

than ever.

– How, I gasp, is this possible?

She is the spitting image of Life.

Finally

I push my bleeding hands under her corpse and

pull her into me, melt into her. I wrap her

tightly in my arms and hold her, press

my head against the stiffness of her chest. My

simmering sweat against the porcelain of her skin. 

My panting breath hot against her mud-clotted 

hair. I say I didn’t mean any of this, I swear 

I swear and 

my blood your blood, my heart your heart, 

my hair your hair 

Scrape the bones clean of my marrow, make it

yours again; just – 

may we never be apart like this, young love.

Then

we sit in sombre silence as I cradle her.

I am her last cocoon. The sun’s at the zenith,

it is noon.

I forget what happens after. Time stands still 

for a second for a moment for a day 

day becomes night 

a layer of glistening frost is coating the both of us 

as the heavenly elements float across the endlessness 

of sky lights flicker shadows move I feel 

no cold no time I feel only that I must not

let me go

When the sun rises

I watch this celestial spectacle in silence – spellbound 

with the bright-eyed open-mouthed amazement of 

a newborn babe. When have I last seen this? I mean 

seen it. Rapt with beauty 

I stare now I see 

the sun pouring out the red-hot gold of its soul and 

sending it so graciously across the plain towards us like 

life like lava blazing its heat vaporizing in an instant

all ice – 

I hug her tightly now; I wish she could see with her own eyes this 

miracle this gift.

When I finally close mine, 

I hear it

it’s coming from

somewhere 

buried deep

a single, dark and strong

reverberating

heartbeat.