THE WOODCUTTER’S DAUGHTER DRIVES HOME

Your father was felled by a giant teak
one purple morning, in the damp
of the forest’s aching mouth.

Your mother hears it a mountain away,
a rush of air sweeping from his lungs,
last broken, holy offering of her name.

The house, now wild with her grief,
grows fibrous roots.  Each empty room
smells deep and sharp as ginger.

After the burying, 
your aunts undress you, show you 
which roots to cut and which to keep.

They make you wash the forest
from your hands and eyes, teach you
their hymns in shrill tongues of birds.

But even now, on the Blanchisseuse road,
the trees still whisper to you
like lovers.

The cry of the bell-bird
is your mother’s strange keening,
and all the fallen logs,

their names long forgotten,
are your father’s arms
waiting to bear you home.