When she was eighty, we learned,

our Gran confronted a man

at her window at night. 
He was from round the bend. 
His house was down by the Banoon train,

the trellis out front displaying unnatural

ornaments: two mismatched picture shapes,
one, a hunter with a rifle, black

with white outlines in the style

of a practice target in profile.
The other was a huge, gaudy butterfly placed

as if the hunter were about to shoot it.
But about this night of confrontation—

years after, Gran confided to one of us, off-hand, 
how she’d lain in her bed, and then

a shadow head had appeared

at the window

and she had spoken to the head in the darkness:
I know you’re there and I know who you are.
At this, the shadow head departed. 
The man went on to kill

a man and

a woman

and bury their bodies on Mount Glorious.
            •	
With my head up this close to the mirror I think, God,

my nose is just like my grandmother’s, and I remember

a time I studied her—one morning in her hallway, in the light

from the guest room’s door—I looked at her head

and thought on, extrapolated from, the looks

of those from the north of England. But really I saw nothing.

I was just piecing, reaching. I was only about twelve.
            •	
Next to that flat figure with the gun

that winged thing looked exultant.
I always noticed it on the way

and knew it wasn’t right.

It wasn’t a joke, it was stating

a view of the world this weirdo thought

we’d better heed. That’s how I felt as a kid.
In the years since I learned

of this encounter at the window,

I’ve thought how she never told

this story into our record as I would,

as I do. This happened! Hell’s bells!
She let it out eventually but only that one time

and it was grown so much by then, that secret,

into a troll thing. Magic potato. Humous

jewel. We could use it now, I think she knew,

because its power was strong from her

conserving it so, without tending it.
Often I tell myself when worried,

Wait but do not consider. 
This is how a secret grows underground.
            •	
In the otherworld, that huge butterfly

casts a shadow above our little craft.

When the thing moves on, so shall we.
The hunter was never aiming at the butterfly;

it had swooped in to shield a soul. The protector

force-fielding, halting time to provide an exit.
            •	
In that mirror that makes me into my ancestor, I question

whether I could dismiss the murderer from my window.
In the mirror my ancestor

scrutinizes me using my own eyes.

(Did you know this is why our ancestors

no longer need their own bodies?)
If the murderer comes to me,

I will sleep inside

while she looks out

my windows and replies.