by Courtney Bates-Hardy
Two weeks in the middle of nowhere,
only bells and birdsong, fearing God
and the priests and the life you have
to go back to where the cold is always
coming for you and this sun only lasts
long enough for you to think you are
sufficiently healed; you are ready, you are not
going to do the same thing over again
the same thing over again, this time
will be different or just the same
in a new location. We don’t heal just once;
we heal again and again and again,
seventy times seven, flesh to bone,
and there is no escape until it’s done.
— from Juniper Volume 4, Issue 3