Tollund Woman

 Tollund Woman

Six am: seclusion folds around me,
a winding-sheet, birds of memory trapped
and flapping inside my skin. I dance to Nerthus,
revel in the blaze of ergot.  The grass runs,
dribbles down my arms, weaves greenness
into baskets. I empty beechnuts into them,
sharp cornered caltrops, answered antiphons.
Silent, I drink more tea: brown, green,
keen to preserve myself, acid as bog
bodies. I lie in peat, eat soup of bristlegrass
and gold of pleasure, tie a hide belt
around my waist, a garrotte around my neck.
My head tips back, detached. I fill with water,
feathered thumbprint stained upon the sky.

(first published in Matter 10, October 2010)