cernunnos ovenbird I cover the cuticles I’ve torn away with a prosthetic thumb–one pointed nail polished with silver. It does nothing to hide the catastrophe of the rest of my fingers, which are a copse of bleeding hang nails. I’m wearing a green dress the colour of pine. And I forgot to shave my legs. And no one here will look at me. The boy who took me to prom twenty-six years ago is wearing a tuxedo with a white carnation pinned to the lapel. He won’t acknowledge my presence. Across the room I catch sight of a man who exists in my mind as something greater than he ever was in life. He’s dressed in his family’s tartan and sitting in a wingback chair, a sguin_dubh tucked into his knee high sock. Our eyes lock. He sees me. He almost always does, though there are exceptions. I cross the floor. “We match,” I say and show him that my dress is the same colour as the threads running through his kilt. He says nothing, but he lets me rest my head on his shoulder and when I’m drifting into a half sleep he carries me out of this place where no one seems to know me, like I’m a child he’s bringing up to bed after a long day. And then he’s gone, as he is always gone, disappearing into the meadows of my subconscious where he finds his real form–hooves and flank and watchful eyes, and antlers reaching for the sky. 260810 what's it to you? who go blather from