Jean Atkin – A Charm Against Uncertain Borders

A Charm Against Uncertain Borders

For I run and Raven on the thong knocks his beak
against my chest. For luck, I touch his eye.
Is he Huginn? Is he Muninn? That would
be hard to say, as thought
roosts close to memory

Tomorrow I ride the edgelands of the Danelaw
keep close what lies at Raven’s back.
For knifed into the bronze, my troll-wife
leads her horse down these same paths.
All night her long hand bridles him
with snakes to make him tame

Her long eye is my old amulet
she is the secret dark
inside of barrows

now it is my time
to bridle them
with snakes