The Wind-Smuggler’s Lullaby
I.
Striking the axe against the silken streams she calls bluebirds to help pick up the pieces of broken glass, ash-covered, she cries for long-gone watery smiles, begs to see once more the watery blink of her mother’s long-gone face. The river only pulsates harder, screaming with foam, in response, throwing her limbs aside as easily as butterfly wings ripped from fading bodies, dusty and orange. II.
The honey of her screams layers the scene like chocolate cake, calling for dark nights and blood diamond constellations, glistening, heaving forward in the sky like a rhino on its last steps home, on its last steps She knows, now, her circle of thorns is snapping The martyr is no more, the martyr is golden, the quiet tragedies of her existence blend into the butter of the musical night sky the red spotted lullaby fades off of the severed tongue The crooked fingers of her hand, reaching upward, begin to crack apart, one by one. The rhino’s body breaks apart, skin separating from muscle, and begins its song of sorrow anew.