ox and mandarin | an almost love story
night has shed
like old fur
bitter, comes morning
Ox walks
and Mandarin walks
each in their own particular
each on their own side of homecoming
each with their own proclivity
of being read and being read again
they haven’t yet met
they maybe never will
so many past lives to carry
Ox has been a hammer to drive away
friends with
Mandarin has been a knight with damsels
Mandarin has been the stalwart armour
against malfunctions of the flesh
and now they have wrapped themselves
around Ox’s ankles,
to suffer the fate
of what has been found weighing
and wanting
they sometimes think of past lives
as a maze of their own making
(which is often called dying
but this is not that)
Ox walks
and Mandarin walks
Ox and Mandarin each move
with their pellets of truth
because some things work best in small doses
some things spell themselves unseen
for Ox it’s a life professed
because secrets are like a river
and Mandarin thinks it is
the slow toll of hours
either way
the silt will cover you
there’s always violence needed for anything good to be made
no creation is out of nothing
no creation is without
end
and how is telling a story different from getting lost
only because you think you know the way
(knowing the way is overrated, the elders
would say just as much as knowing where you are)
only because you can feel your way home
while you can’t even feel your way out of one body
to the next
out of the slick coat
out of the long spool
out of the traces of blood
out of the death throes
a story means getting lost and getting lost again
which is the most familiar thing
a story means tracing your own steps
until they no longer are
yours to trace
a story means running your finger
over the sharp end of the abyss
until you find exactly where it hurts
until you find it waiting
to be met
Milla van der Have is a Dutch poet writing in English.
