You want, I know, to go back
to normal, that distant, sepia-sweet
place your memory has touched up
with erasure and longing—
I know. I can tell you how
in the hell of the cottage
—that kidnapping-cum-quarantine—
all I could think of was home.
I drew the blanket of the familiar
over my days and dreams, wept
when the new reality of my life
poked me with its bony finger,
ordered me to rise and cook—
all of it, a cage I could not break.
When at last I bested the witch
and found her treasures, my future
gleaming possible in my hands, I chose
to run back to what I remembered:
I write to you now from that place.
Which is to say, I would go to that girl
heaving with relief and remind her
that she was no lost sheep,
but a lamb sent to the slaughter.
I would tell her that the sacrificed
are not meant to survive the cut—
that return is another word for re-wounding.
I would tell her she has been sharpening
the formidable weapon of her mind,
that her hands could build as well as burn.
Forget normal, and back, and happily ever after,
I would say to her; imagine otherwise.
