Following the fire road to fairy rings
locket of scars pocket of fog
going to meet my ghost love – meet my muse
in the fire scar the redwood’s blackened cavity
Tell me muse how do we live with such damage 

going to the scorched church where I commune
with you with fog with god
where I write my way
back from the unmoored night  

Inside the redwood apses, hardened candlewax
some ritual where I tried to wish you
back to life. O fairy rings O sacred grove
where the soft light softens the surround

close the windows my muse has already flown
the stain of redwood leaves like rust
like old spilled blood like ancient history

the woodpecker’s incessant rapping
I imagine you longing to get in
wild nights in the cathedral
sacraments of flesh

going down to sleep in the fire scar
disturb the bats am disturbed
could carve our initials in the trunk
but would rather ink you
in the private places of my skin
keep you a secret not graffiti

heading to the fire scar
heading ceaselessly back to our fire scar
passing our love skiff unmoored on the riverbank
going to write you back to life
there’s a book of light
that has us in it
no matter how unsightly
we may seem
sleeping in our mortal skin.
on our backs in the fairy circle
the blue sky dome its blue
eye gazing directly upon god
the early morning light
outlines our bodies
where there were scars
now a smooth translucent skin
you are venerable
I am divine 

Terri Drake is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her collection of poems, At the Seams, was published by Bear Star Press. Her poems have appeared in Quarry West, Perihelion, Online Journal of Arts and Letters, Fearsome Critters, and From Whispers to Roars, among others. She is a practicing psychoanalyst living in Santa Cruz, California.