Child Trapped in a Barn Crypt

First the breathless flight              
            from the village, the whip's

small script on your tongue. Then stench, 
            then rest, then silence. You'd not thought
 
such spectacle persisted: thick wool             
            shifting in darkness, each beast

to its own monk's cell. It was winter, then 
            winter, then winter. Remember the door 

cast open, owl-song
            swirling above you, brittle  

as an orphan's dominion?               
            How you crouched in a piss-laden      
 
cellar, while the blade's hymn 
            whispered for more? Moon-
 
stone, strong-
            box, psalter: You will wait here

alone, into hunger, where the floor's 
            good granite 
 
surrendered, in the crook 
            of your cold-stone 

hollow, in the ghosts
            of the arms of the poor: 

the lamb's blood thick  
            on your jaw now, where the wind's 

wild hand 
            still lays it, saying taste

and see, and surrender,  
            as though filth were the brilliance's door.