Today’s Poem: The Bride’s Nights in a Strange Village, by Helen Dunmore
The Bride’s Nights in a Strange Village
~Helen Dunmore
At three in the morning
while mist limps between houses
while cloaks and blankets
dampen with dew
the bride sleeps with her husband
bundled in a red blanket,
her mouth parts and a bubble
of sour breathing goes free.
She humps wool up to her ears
while her husband tightens his arms
and rocks her, mumbling. Neither awakes.
In the second month of the marriage
the bride awakes after midnight.
Damp-bodied
she lunges from sleep
hair pricking with sweat
breath knocking her sides.
She eels from her husband’s grip
and crouches, listening.
The night is enlarged by sounds.
The rain has started.
It threshes leaves secretively
and there in the blackness
of whining dogs it finds out the house.
Its hiss enfolds her, blots up
her skin, then sifts off, whispering
in her like mirrors
the length of the rainy village.
