i looked for you using the one
fortune-telling tool i knew, gyromancy
i turned and turned until i fell,
sick, to the ground, my head pointed
toward the graveyard
i asked the other ecstatici
if my telling was true
they shrugged–they were always against us
i knew of one dying elder in the village
and offered the service
of salt and bread up on his chest
as he breathed his last
he told me he would answer freely
that i ought not need to eat his sins
that you were now where he would be soon
i heard a leaf fall and on it
your name written in spider silk
a thousand wings beat the air
that night i followed the ignis fatuus
through the cold stones
where fresh turned earth greeted me
——
Words and Feathers 