Now She Will Bend Away

Now She Will Bend Away
Timor mortis conturbat me (William Dunbar)*

Now she will bend away to lift
and shake her skirt. She holds it up
in morning light as if
she looks for holes
a moth might leave or threads
loosened by the movement of her hips.

As bees come to the bottle bush
her song springs in the summer air.
As buzzing breaks my thoughts of death,
she sings a whispered tune
and shakes her skirt again
as if it were an offering to
the solstice sun.

Removing window glaze, I pause
to watch her hanging clothes and rub
my thumb across my putty knife.
I work as if I have no fear
I’ll leave this world without my dreams,
which seem as rustic
as the clothes lines bent with weight.

I want to dream that when I die I will
recall her name. She might be bidding me
a mock farewell, standing alone among
the lemon shadows of the grass and trees.
I know that corn is cob and stalk,
and from the mountain’s melting ice
come flashing fish.

She bends away to lift and snap a pillow slip.

* Timor mortis conturbat me (The fear of death confounds me)