Callisto

I am becoming a bear.
It began in the tear-heart root of me

coming naturally
as I was sorting my pillowcases

in the airing cupboard.
My feet beneath the white sheet-linen

widening and clamouring like roses.
And my hands around the folds I’d wrought

suddenly downy.
As I lay in bed

I could feel its penances
sweeping over me

like a vicar’s tract,
my pores, one by one,

letting go of the old routine and act,
and opening up to the planted seed

of the wound
in the blood, in the hide

until my head transformed, ignited,
the stars unfurled, dastardly,

counterfeit as mirror-images
beneath my eyelids,

darkness low at my side
as an accomplice.

3

  

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