How to live forever
Take off your clothes, shoes last:
the ledge is cold
And old joints stiffen
in chill night air.
Leave them piled on the rock,
an offering to the crone.
Then turn your back
on her engulfing gray cloak,
her clicking necklace
of polished finger bones.
Turn your back,
and you will no longer dream
she gnaws the flesh from your face
with tiny, delicate bites.
Turn your back, step to the edge.
Open your arms to the wind
that rises from shadow.
Reach for her now,
she beckons --
not a crone after all
but a pale woman-child.
"No fear," she whispers
from inside the wind.
"No fear," you sigh
as your feet lose the ledge
and you fly.
Forever.
© Jo Deurbrouck, 1997
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