THE WAY TO BURY A HAND Poem by Sasja Janssen

The milk cooks to morning-yellow over the enamel saucepan
its bottom like young black earth, that fear
does not belong to night-time criers, or to black bile, or the terminal
the malicious talus and its poppies.
What does it then belong to, little milk?

To deep gardens where aerial roots take your breath away
wood lice take shelter in your sheath, fingers burrow
out of your stomach. I shrug my shoulders, stir up the fire.
With the rod against my midriff I can feel how little milk
is hotly mocking my hand, with fresh earth to bury it in.