The Art of Detection
       

I took the possum apart by myself.
There were no instruments, per se;
mostly it was questions, telepathy.
But these were enough.

They revealed that the middle of the possum
and the middle of the night are one and the same.
The night is all that is in him.
It is how he goes, how he secretly lives.
It is what he is hiding.

Now it is no mere dream of the night
that occupies the possum, nor revelations
in the night, nor expectations of day
begotten by night, nor any yearnings
or conjurings thereof—just night,
the blackness and breathing.

There is nothing to be done, of course.
Night is uncorrectable.
And I am not now, nor have I ever been,
a healer. I just go into the woods.
Then I go deeper.

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Copyright © 2020 Sara Miller All rights reserved
from Spellbound
Burnside Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission