Woman

Woman Someone might read your body like a book Kata was cared for Had a varied diet And was buried wrapped tightly in cloth She didn't do much physical work One broken finger A slightly curved spine It's none of our business What colour her eyes But science says blue She made a hand sign for "I am sick" Her hands said "I am sick" And were understood Limestone, room bull hissing, a goshawk's broken neck We know it was boring, sometimes Call her darling Call her Kata, daughter, bog girl, body once blood Believed in god or was made to Corpse, our lady of the light shoe Was made of me and made of you But less electric, with less range to her food We know she had a hair pin in When they laid her down Took off her ring Made her one living sister Drop a coin in and sing Viking mud Viking sarcasm Viking stomach's rumbling She knew the sound of a wasp a-coughing She knew the squealing wing beats of a giant metal bird And the bird was a gulp trunking husband Behaving in their little way, far away Burning little places, little farms With little rivers and piglets And a little leaking rowboat with rusting rivets She yearned to forgive him, the little shit Dying on his first little trip We know he split her lip We've seen his stone It says Kata placed this stone in memory of her husband Eric Who was a good young man killed in England It says, "Farewell Eric You joined the dead club in England" What's left or Eric is Five meters beneath the Lidl car park in Maldon, Essex You know, Eric! Eric wet-boots, Eric one-thumb, scared of his mum Eric sight-hound, silver coin where his rotted pocket was Eric thin-beard, black-tooth Loved his little collection of coloured glass beads Gap root slack brute Practical map-reader, happy Loved insects, especially bees And there's a worm feasting now On what was once his knees And Eric is into the river Chelmer Into the blackwater Washed out to sea Swallowed and pissed, a thousand times over Bits of Eric make up Jacob Who stands smoking a Benson In the exact spot between Lidl and Kwik Fit Where Eric fell 1300 Harpas ago At the same exact moment As bits of Eric fall as rain On the kneeling archaeologist who gazes down at Kata In her limestone box Reading the body like a book Someone Might read your body like a book Unearthed, undead again What we know is Kata had little thoughts All the time, then stopped Like us She made a hand sign Asking us: "Let me rest" And she made it, and made it And alas We will not