STAR-GAZING
Joan Poulson

We stuffed cushions with cloud,
talked of sewing clothes
for women in myth: Persephone, Medusa;
whispered spidery-stitches

and fairy-sized needles.
Old Woman, Old Woman, Old Woman, quoth I,
Whither, oh whither, oh whither so high?
To sweep the cobwebs from the sky.

Tonight the courtyard's coped in stars
scattered like teeth in a burial ground.
A woman half-emerged
from the twisty trunk of a hawthorn.

People are here to talk of myth,
relax against cloud that floated
over Baba Yaga's home: chicken-leg
hut fenced round with bones,

spinal-column uprights topped with lantern skulls.
The lecture's ended.
People stroll outside, star-gazing.
A woman limps through shadow,

pale-moth hand drifting to the hawthorn.
She stoops to pluck a celandine,
holds it in the air between us.
Her smile chisels bones.