Bois d’arc

means “bow-wood,” another name for Osage orange,
or mock orange.………I suppose it’s kind of a mock
to mistranslate— …….names have meaning after all,
names are a call— …..but I keep thinking wood-dark
in my head, imagining what lurks unseen.
Did you know the Comanche used bois d’arc,
in a watered infusion of its roots, to cure afflictions
of the eye?
…………………………………I didn’t and I wonder how
they ground it down, with what utensil? Then,
could one see better, in the dark wood-dark?
Give me some. I’d try anything
because I’m pretty lost here.
………………………………..Sometimes at night, a house
becomes wood-dark and you must feel along the walls,
back from the bathroom ……until it seems
you’ve gone too far, ……………out the patio door, into
forest. ………………………………..The Comanche used
bois d’arc for bows, hence bow-wood, and sometimes
I imagine arrows— …………….the lighted ones
from movies—flying through, a flame, a flare.
Daniel Day-Lewis is always behind them shouting
…………………………………………..I will find you
to Madeline Stowe.
…………Sometimes, a stag stabs the moonlight
in a meadow, or the white wings of a barn owl
flap, or the warm yellow porch light draws me back.
…………Sometimes, I go deeper in, even though
I’m afraid. My friend once told me everything’s better
if you can only take off your shoes. I haven’t done so
since I was a girl, too much risk for cut or infection.
……………………But what if I could traverse
this slippery moss of the riverbank, curl naked toes
over rock, dip my feet in, pale fish, under the rushing
water. …………………….No one has ever held me
like these leaves, bowing down with their heavy
inedible fruit. I could juggle those, or chuck them
at the heads of my enemies—ghost figures that flit through
the dark while I listen for the call—survive, I will
find you—before I remember a film is just a moving
dream…………..I do not know if I will be found, or what fruit
will be borne to me, but perhaps there will also be
true orange or peach or plum, pulp over pit.

____

Christine Butterworth-McDermott’s latest poetry collection is Evelyn As: Poems (Fomite Press, 2019). Her poetry and fiction has been published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, River Styx, and Voyage YA, among others. She is the founder and co-editor of Gingerbread House Literary Magazine.