I. On the Hill

Falling onto the hill, the cobbled hill; the air of factories and weavers who trotted on these cobbles;
it is father, father is round each corner; this is in the history and our father is around every corner.

Singer's stone statues of altars and churches and museums and judder of sewing machines;
the mason's hammer cracks against the thud of wool sacks thumping to the pavements.

Now we tread against brow as breast, womanly we scratch around the boutiques for feathers and
comfort; it is all too womanly and I want to be man, to go rough weave; I want to go rough weave and jump on
you.

It may be dark, but I am not the darkness; I have dark but my dark is down.; it is down here at the
bottom; it is safe; it is with the well; Jack and Jill tumbling and it is nursery rhymes and it is safe.

There is a spring in the wall of the church at the top of Cheap Street where a channel of water rushes;
under-hoof, under-foot; put your head in that water and be re-born; then come to the house on the hill.

We climb up into the attic; there are books; there are pictures; buckets of books;
there is the scent and noise of a neighbourhood of cobbled together pieces that do not make sense.

Sounds billow from the street; they go down the old steps into Catherine Hill and fall again onto the hill;
How many times have we tumbled on those cobbles, hoping for change; sex is change; sexton; sex
change.

We always go there, we weave and go there; father is around the corner; vulnerable nudges against
power; and mother is here but somehow too much comfort to help us to flight; the skin falls away and I
see you.

You come in to show me to the edge of my selfish shell of self-protecting skin, and how to leap over;
the tears now run like the channel on Cheap Street and I am here free-falling down the hill.

I can feel us both running now; kindling the flames of what might just show us the source of danger;
burn away the chaff and reveal the place of safety, safety in numbers and somewhere's safety nets.

There is a man who beyond beyond the wall of the church said cast your net on the other side of the
boat; he said it like the voice of a spring, and so I do and the boat rocks and the catch is great.

The hunger subsides; I write words to you; they are the fullness of Spring and they are received;
we let go of all the argument and walk upright away from the hill with pails in our hands, singing...

II. In the Valley

Bubbles from the spring. Yet I am lonely. Yet I am lonely. I am alone and I must climb into the spring to
feel its bubbles and your presence against me wildly.

Yet I am wild and yet I am alone. I am rough in my sex. I am not woman, not yet. I want to climb into the
spring and go down, deep down.

Across the land and through the woods there is the call and presence. Manly, something watches me. I
am not safe. My body tightens like a screw, like an animal. Shudders its hide.

I want to hide behind the trees. I am very silent in the chapel. I meditate. I can do monk. Can I screw a
monk? I am far too much me. There is too much of me. The narrative is too heavy with me.

Selfish you suggested. Its suggestion keeps pushing, pulling back and forth. So the split. You are lonely
and enter the split. You tell me the split is not safe.

I look at you across the space. I fall in. I shrink and disappear. Mostly I fall in. You are trouble but I love
you. I will be trouble but you love me. We get it. We get it. We get it together. Blind spots trip us over everywhere. Another dot, another spot. Blood. Fear. We claw at each other like animals in flight.

You hide. I chase. I hide, you chase. Off and on. On and off. Never getting it together. I get me to a
nunnery. You are a bloody Hamlet. You are Narcissus. I am Echo over and over.

In the valley and the woods and into the spring I am echoing a birdsong. I repeat these lines in my head
that blind spot and never make a mark. Blank, blank. White sheet.

Slipping, sliding. Off the page there is breakthrough. It is when I sit in the waves that I break through.
The waves. There is a wave here. It washes all over me. Through me. It calls me.

I will go there in time. Please don't follow me. Please follow me blind. Ride the wave. Let it bring you.
Like incense in the chapel. Bubbles from the spring, entering my body at last.

The land.
My hand.
The letters.
My glove, ring, wing, friend.
We make it together.
We meet in peace.