ox and mandarin | an almost love story
night has shed like old fur bitter, comes morning
Ox walks and Mandarin walks
each in their own particular each on their own side of homecoming
each with their own proclivity of being read and being read again
they haven’t yet met they maybe never will
so many past lives to carry
Ox has been a hammer to drive away friends with
Mandarin has been a knight with damsels Mandarin has been the stalwart armour against malfunctions of the flesh
and now they have wrapped themselves around Ox’s ankles,
to suffer the fate of what has been found weighing and wanting
they sometimes think of past lives as a maze of their own making
(which is often called dying but this is not that)
Ox walks and Mandarin walks
Ox and Mandarin each move with their pellets of truth
because some things work best in small doses some things spell themselves unseen
for Ox it’s a life professed because secrets are like a river
and Mandarin thinks it is the slow toll of hours
either way the silt will cover you
there’s always violence needed for anything good to be made no creation is out of nothing no creation is without end
and how is telling a story different from getting lost only because you think you know the way
(knowing the way is overrated, the elders would say just as much as knowing where you are)
only because you can feel your way home while you can’t even feel your way out of one body to the next
out of the slick coat out of the long spool
out of the traces of blood out of the death throes
a story means getting lost and getting lost again which is the most familiar thing
a story means tracing your own steps
until they no longer are yours to trace
a story means running your finger over the sharp end of the abyss
until you find exactly where it hurts
until you find it waiting
to be met
Milla van der Have is a Dutch poet writing in English.