Mock's Recovery (an excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons")

Sylvana was sewing Mock's severed shreds,

coaxing his wounds in the manner Guanyin taught her

with the wandering stitches she'd handed down

from the Man in the Moon's transvestite daughter.

sprinkling his skin with an elixir of herbs

she released the fever in sweltering streams,

and sealing her charms with susurration

dissolved the delirium reeling from his dreams.

"do you think he can travel?" inquired Sappy

peeping anxiously over her shoulder,

whilst wrapping ropes round ripped apart satchels

and piling them up in the lee of a boulder.

"he'll float with Chester.  and don't start fretting.

i give you my word he's entirely benign.

can you hand me my wriggling sack of stitches?

it's over there next to that creeping vine."

Sappy pursued her bobbing directions

to the spry, slinking tendrils of unattached greens.

it wasn't a vine but one of Mock's crutches

spurting like it sprouted from Jack's magic beans.

leaves were unfolding with unstilted grace

while his face was a study in consummate shock.

"Nate carved those out of dead, fallen branches.

they were properly staid when we gave them to Mock."

as they stared at the staves in wide-eyed wonder,

the furthest thrusting sprig arrived at Mock's toes,

and seeming to be pleased with this achievement

left off its flailing and acquired repose.

they stood transfixed in pools of stranded light,

sifting and slanting through the sloped, sunken barrow,

till Nate passed the portal of staggered stones

in the company of the catering sparrow.

"your friends have turned up with Rashful and the twins.

they're wanting to know when we're planning to leave.

if we start anon and stay out of trouble

we'll be at the spookhouse for Aethelwort's Eve."

Sappy was moved by this tender echo

of Pally’s spirited endearment for their home,

and deeming that Nate could do with distraction,

pointed at the lumber stemming through the loam.

the woodsman was baffled at what he beheld

for Mock was cocooned in a latticework bed,

cushioned on a bower of shuffling leaves

while stalks were entwining beneath his dozing head.

but cottoning on to what he’d been seeing

when his carpenter’s mark went sidling by,

he was seized by a sudden access of angst

and was quite at a loss to comprehend why.

the hedging awareness of a sun-drenched bench

lurked in the menace of a brandishing club.

yet the scent of a pipe and a keen sense of loss

nearly occluded the memory’s nub.

Sylvana flashed apprehension to Sappy,

suggesting that Nate be nudged from this muddle.

“let’s see how Chester’s getting on” she proposed,

then linked up their arms to hinder rebuttal.

but her efforts were bested by the sparrow

pivoting focus with imperative cheeps

to the transplanting plants tagging along,

their rummaging roots never tarrying for keeps.

"this is rather unsettling" said Sappy.

"though Mock's conveyance is seemingly decided.

they certainly are a determined lot.

when we stepped in their way, they simply divided."

Nate jumped as the sparrow twittered on his shoulder

and strained the frayed reins of temporal drift.

but tuned back in to tangible tangents,
he led his companions to the cleft in the cliff.

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- Evan Hawthorn, the 29^th of October, 2015