My grandmother said precious little but merely breathed in and in
as if the back of her were open and we were no longer in
the presence of the front. Is it over?
someone asked, of the inverted journeywork.
I put my hand to her mouth, from which a heat streamed
as if the alphabet were burning: some final fever
of the Bible and the merest mention made, of the contradictions
and the flickering signs, of how-to's and hearsays
and who she might have been if No had never been said to her
appeared before us without
hindrance, her face smoothed and blued,
so this was what Yes looked like.
From Forth A Raven by Christina Davis. Copyright © 2006 by Christina Davis. Reprinted by permission of Alice James Books.