Calamus

for Natalie Boyett

Under sharp gravel, almost buried, 

my thousand oppressors were thwarted by your down. 

Stones, insulated, depotentiated by goose feathers. 

This was your sorcery.

You, running… ripping open duvet blankets all over town,

shaking them out of windows and doorways;

down the streets down floated and tumbled.

Mortality wandered nearby, long worn cloak flapping.

You shook the tree, out white cottonwood drifted, it filled the air.

Death could not find your friend,

could not recognize her shape.

You blotted out ruin with plumes and kapok. 

Demise had to sit down and wrap its mantle tightly

around, compress inward,

cover its hollow hole of a missing nose to keep all the fluff from crowding in. 

Darkness covered in down, and down darkness sat.

Fatality finding some other orientation 

in this white blizzard of no snow;

fiber, warm not cold,

stunning bright clouds of ticklish confusion.

You, always cunning

in ways of kindness and gaping open

in generosity, 

pinning a tail on some other donkey. Not me.