There, just inside the threshold are your treasures
beach gleaned sea glass and gathered hagstones.
The first pebble-tumbled, shaped and smoothed.
The other’s pierced form thought to void witchcraft.
Wire strung hagstone columns guard our house.
Myth tells that magic wont travel over water
and holed stones, wrongly thought sea formed,
hold mystic power, protection from the evil eye.
Did my disbelief draw that gaze to me?
You pressed fresh treasures in my hand
for favourable prognostication of my entrails.
Omens were not good, I was at war within.
Five doses of poisonous purge prescribed.
My chemical scourging also lashed you –
as it sinuously circled and searched in me,
you phantom rode the wild hunt in my blood.
The fifth dose had me beaten, ready for defeat;
then stored riches were unleashed, I was raised,
by that selfless care you had shared for months,
new touch discovered in our fifty-year’s embrace.
