The Tracker
The tracker came during the coldest autumn on record,
minus eight and a freezing blizzard drifting him in.
We sat him by the stove, fed him on salt-dried tench
and barley; hot, thick and sweetened with honey
and a quiet word of thanks.
The world outside stubbled the window with ice
and hard-rime pellets clustered in the trees
to snatch the rising sun into a thousand frozen opals
that dripped their load into a skin-chafed sky.
He talked stories that trimmed the rafters with colour,
wolves tore shivers from our flesh, their howls
a black-ice winter’s night with the tawny eyes of a devil.
It was a miracle, he said. He showed us the scars.
The hunter of skins had been flayed in return,
left leg stripped to the bone, blood turning snow
into a gore-spotted frappé that frosted his clothes
and turned ice melt into a spicy pinot noir.
He didn’t stay long but his stories lingered
like graffiti on the side of a wall; dissident images
refusing to relinquish their ownership, their unrequited horror.
It was many years before I took to red wine,
and I never could face a frappé.