☀ Today's Poem: "Driven Nail Cure" Emma Aylor

If you've seen a prayer spoken, you know something
    of what I mean. The purpose of the prayer list,
        read by the priest aloud, prior to a silence, is to hold

        names' wetted wafers in the mouth. A person
    creaks like small gravel—you told me that.
You told me trees make speech sounds, growing.

You're not one person, but it's clear you're far
    from the plot I've made. Hard ground. Every cold
        recalls first cold, as in my Virginia's first winter, a wind

        half-silvered, sharp as a mirror we're given back through
    but through which we can't see. Same as now. In Appalachia
sometimes a German custom kept: sink a nail in a tree.

at the height of a child, to cure her. This presumes the child
    has time to grow past what's driven. Presumes incantation
        and walking eastward. Certain conditions must be met

that other events may follow. The list keeps growing
    in quiet. The mirror might show a fix and distance
you didn't intend. Land slips. Its red color . .

You take the child from home to tree before day; neither of you
may speak a word. And if you've seen a handmade nail,
        you can't help but drnw the modern ones

        backward, the way art of dark caves portends our paintings:
    an abiding absorption in effigies, marks, and asking
that something happen, and in the way we want.