Didi Jackson

After Hildegard of Bingen   We fill our eyes when they are closed. We dig our fingers into the crevices of the flamed grain of the oak table in search of crumbs and pebbles of sand nested there. We hear the songs that come from these nests, clear and crisp as Ordo Virtutum, a music

A bride is not mouth and finger; she is not footfalls and keys nor smolder nor the fortress of tulle and feather, not tongue, not an amnesiac, nor a ringed exit; she is not a laughing kitchen of oil and milk, nor a funeral nor bracelets and hairpins, she is not the quiver and the

I was dead an entire spring.
I lost clumps of hair
and my nails peeled and flaked