Body (Poetry)

Discovery brought that afternoon shuddering into focus,
yet I can’t remember which one of us hissed Look!
as we crouched among tangled stems and squinted,
the moment sealed in the amber of a long-ago summer,
its sudden chill preserved.

Behind us, the river’s quiet brown tongue swelled
to a sinister mumble and the benevolent sky
blew its insipid cover as, released from the air,
a shiver passed over. The familiar loomed, strange,
and our shadows stuck closer.

Unsure of what to do, we cast long glances, spying out the land,
cautious as hunters edgy with fear, trying to identify the half-seen —
a fabric’s sprawling shape, a man-sized form. Whispering,
we swapped views like cigarette cards, collecting morbid images,
playing detective.

Nothing stirred. No one came along the narrow path. The crooked sign
that said 'Cycling Prohibited' clung, white paint peeling, to the fence.
We searched for clues but not too close, we didn’t dare disturb
the screen of leaves, or part the secretive tall grass that brooded,
woven by the sun.

Spooked by uneasy silence spontaneously broken —
a snapping twig made us take to our heels, nervous
as birds whirring from a thicket, we sped home,
the word body on our lips, anxious to spill over,
reveal its location.

Torrential, the story tumbled out, loose on fact,
high in imagination — we’d all but seen the bones;
glimpsed a purple dagger buried to its hilt; smelled
the scent of death labelling the spot exclusive; felt
horror’s sickly thrill.

A grown-up led us back to find the place and,
uncovering a pile of rotting clothes with empty sleeves —
the shell of someone gone — sighed with us, our shared relief
a thin disguise for guilty feelings much too close
to disappointment.