The Billowing

Barbara DeCoursey Roy

i.

At the feet of the hawthorn,

hyacinths,

the ground around the holy well

warmer than I expected for March.

I wore a lichen-green gown

and a crown of marigolds.

I saw and heard tiny things—ants

composting soil from the bole

of an oak, the crackle of buds

uncurling their fists on the dogwood,

cricket eggs hatching in the meadow.

A cello playing in my chest.

ii.

It’s like falling asleep. You won’t feel it.

They lied. Everything was magnified.

I felt a million needles prick my skin,

a burning sensation like a candle

held close to my toes.

My head was a plate spinning on the finger

of a derelict juggler.

I let the pain taste me, pull me into its arms,

press me against its dark breast.

I could no longer breathe.

The tide took me, its tentacles raked me

out to sea, slapped me back on land,

limp as kelp.

iii.

Forgive me. We weren’t expecting you yet.

A stately woman spoke, her voice a bassoon.

She wore a wimple, and a long apron

over a paisley housedress. Smelled of semolina.

A rope around her waist attached to a puppy.

She shook my hand, covered it

with both of hers, called me Daughter.

iv.

The violence of my death still shocks me.

No eagle’s wings, no rush of galaxies.

For the longest time, I was nothing.

I was nowhere.

A feeling of hovering, until colors

filled my lenses, violet, red, blue, chartreuse.

A bow brushed across my chest,

and I could hear strains of a cello.

I heard the clatter of cups and dishes,

the sound of women

exchanging confidences, heads together,

faces lined with forgotten sorrows. Saw steam

from platters of fresh-baked bread.

I could smell hyacinths. Water dripped

from the holy well

christening the stones.

v.

The hawthorn spoke. Tell them not to believe

they will arrive here without pain.

There is a wrenching,

then a wandering,

a landscape of snowdrifts,

terrible silence.

Then, billowing out, like a piece of silk.

Finally, a woman’s voice,

and endless kindness.

BARBARA DECOURSEY ROY is an American poet from St Louis, Missouri. Her poems have been published in Vox Galvia, Headstuff, Skylight 47, Popshot Quarterly, and Drawn to the Light. With three other women, Barbara won the 2021 Dreich Alliance Chapbook competition for How Bright The Wings Drive Us.