Writer | Copy Editor
Blood and flame,
quiet sparks, this wooden bed.
Gods know the quickening —
the eye, the hand, the wrist, wrapped in fine skin.Flesh marks tracing bled pattern,
soft heathen.
Horns and raven’s wings — cut me in silver.Earth.
Spread me with axes and shields,
all that fair and fierce longing.Over and under, over and under,
weave braids and veins
and cut the heart, fighter.
A shield born of ash and mist.
Touch me again.
He is heavy in the chest — his limbs like petrified bark. Sweat dapples his brow, and there is a cloudiness in his sight – a type that even enchantments cannot correct – a poison that courses through the tiny tubes of his existence, striking and thwarting all that makes his matter.
She is a summer storm as she works, her hands muddling and concocting. He eases as he hears her careful worrying, ad he minds the beating of his heart: fast, then slow, then fast again, and then slow. Sun behind clouds, then moon, then sun again, and then dark.
Stop talking.
Breeze against my neck, my hair.
Spells and chants and incantations and all.
Cloth folded over cloth — careful, dutiful.
Guardian, watch me.
Shoulder blades and back — smooth relish of the breast.
Keep yourself lonely and fading.
Pretend me away and chant words,
but nakedness in the front,
a private love song.