A poem by Rozalie Hirs

MANDRAKE

In the root a spirit lives –
it runs up along the stem.
You read me with your hand
that drinks of me with its eye.

I attend your body – in its frame
the window pane leant towards
the riddle of your name.
I unfold it like a map.

The root was an engraver in shifting sand -
inscribing there the drifting land.
We dig the deadly nightshade out of
the scream in the soil.

I bear your imprint – an amulet
of skin, formed in your image.
You have stroked and scored
me with your script.

The weed is not its magic.
White wax becomes a bead
of glass – the psychotropic
root node writes the

antidote.