I stumble on a hassock, falling into wet grass, an adage caught on grainy security footage we surround an unexploded missile, say mass, witness, assuage, perfume inert metal with outrage.
The fall is soft, but winds and dazes me a middle aged man keels over in a field alone, rendered safe, children play around the debris bristling, they stroke the canister like a cheekbone.
I pull myself up onto my knees, open my arms like a prophet without a flock to beguile to encode my profane gospel with studded charms then fall alone in a field, a hostile projectile.
When I return an elder blesses me in our way, dipping poplar in holy water, anointing with broken spray on my cheek, a missile array blooms in the sky, colours the desert a plaything.
He smelled like chicken fat, the priest who robed those accolytes in the robes you’d bury a child in, fabric torn by relatives, cutting at the deathbed, memories, rivers now wearing a droughtdry skin.