Augur of Remedy

by Brent House

By messenger

with face masked & hidden

I still come to apparent pain.

& have no cure.

In another day I’d put wilted beet leaf

over your lobed ears. Or poultice

your temple with gum turpentine

& brow with onion.

Son

I would cut your hair

& hide the strands under a rock

or in the cleft of a lightered knot

I would pour hot water

over greens

& rouse their odor

to blind your pain

or I’d tie a white lily sack on my head.

Son

want don’t stop need

so I put heartwood in the well

& drink spirits from a teaspoon

& droplets from the spiderwebs

& suck salty waters up my nose.

Still

your blues got deep as a hollow grain silo

in the rusted shades of absence.