Pat Winslow
The Person Waiting
He always comes this time of year.
When the transhumance is finished.
He is the last to pass this way.
The others have already descended to the valleys.
Some years he stays. A quiet man.
Hervald says he is like the process which makes copper.
Thoughts like malachite, a crucible for a skull.
Who knows what he burns in there.
He never speaks. His hands are hot.
All weathers. Last year when he came,
the quarter moon rose like cattle horns.
A double image in the stone-faced sky.
His skin smelt rotten. Something sour, like fear. His hands shook.
He watched it all night then left next day.
Tjormak's baby had a hare-lip.
It snowed four months and never stopped.
We have been waiting by the entrance.
Twenty days and still no sign. The moon is in its third.
Every night I dream of creaking grass. Every night.
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