in the silent lull
tip of the tongue
and suck-still of breath
after the comma

,

the space that is
empty but swaying
cowled by a pensile pause,
just here, is where I am hiding.

bring a bengal light
and come alone
to flush me out
like the lesser woodpecker

in the dense scrubland waste;
with his blushed-red cap
and blackened side-eyes
set left and right,

separated by
a soft feathered cleft
the nub of his bill, tapered
thorn-sharp as a barb

knocking on the doors
of towering beeches
needling their hollow
wooded larynxes,

awakened by appetite
and early chorus song;
be young and rest assured
there is time yet

in morning’s first light
that casts a glimmer
on the rood
to take a dew-japped plume

and place it to the paper’s whiteness
neatly aligning its needle
pointed like a jut of headland
after the comma,

to cast an untouched story
just for me, sign it with obsidian
and let the veins of ink
bed down;

for in the cast-off world
behind these words
I can at last
be found