Solace

When I am lonely I pray to the gods
of my childhood to come back 

with one of their remedies. They could fix 
anything: they pounded cloves of garlic 

into a paste and anointed the soles 
of my feet; every crease in my elbows, 

the short hill of my nape. No matter
how far lost I was in the thickets 

of fevered hallucination, somehow 
their vigil allowed me to find my way 

back to my body, seething then cooled 
in the sheets. They floated rice 

grains in a bowl of water, cracked
an egg into it. I want to learn these 

mysteries, how they coaxed my spirit 
back to health when it was languishing. 

Their faces hover above me in bed, 
smelling of the elemental: soil, crushed 

roots. They wrap vines that climb in the dark
around my wrists so I can rise and follow.