The Oaten Bride X Poem by David McLansky

A thread of blackness veils the moon,
A sign of pleasure from the Groom;
The Holy Rites now Sanctified,
The Earth in Spring will sprout alive;

The Dagger planted in the Earth
By Oaten God at His birth;
A jagged shadow, a reddened tongue,
Marks the yearly rite as done;

The Bride sprawls on her marriage bed,
Dark crimson is her maidenhead;
Her blood now paints the jagged stone;
The seeded Earth sleeps now reborn;

They set her in a briny bog
Beneath some fallen oak tree logs;
A peat-man found her boneless hide:
Two thousand years, black, mumified;

She failed to make the Spring oats grow;
They withered in a sleeting snow;
She lies indifferent to the earth,
Her leather skin a human purse.