A man walks out of the forest. What walks out of him?
A good question is a snail, carrying its own answer on its back.
Making a home inside. Words are little houses;
words are caves. The man walks into the city,
but before he gets there, the city has already walked into him.
When he was young, people thought he had feathers
on his head instead of hair. Fable is a verb: from fabulari, to talk.
Many years later, it turned out to be leaves:
the kind of new green you see after fire or rain. Green fire.
What is magic, but the process of making something
that has become dull incandesce again?
A lie breathed through silver. Descending into the unconscious,
and following those who know more than we do. Feathers, leaves—
now that the man is a baby again, no one is certain.
Kelly Shepherd’s third collection, Dog and Moon, is forthcoming from Oskana. Insomnia Bird, his second, won the 2019 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize.