Tiller Time

you think I haven’t sat

at the black gate

long enough to know

the price of passage

I’ve notches enough

on the sword blade

on the wrist of the whip hand

on the blackened wood

of the bannister

I’ve laid down

under the sun and the storm

and the night and felt their

vigor / time and time again

there is no hour

left under the ice sheet

in its weeping bed

for you to recount

all the kinds of torment

you can imagine

it’s tiller-time / we’re being

driven before the hunt

and the wind has

already risen