She doesn’t have long for this world, he said. 

Simple words in numbed barbs 

With a drop of lush at reign  

Spread along the plane of fate  

Like the prophet’s uneasy hymns.  

 

Squirming, squealing, yet stoic eyes 

A flash of chattering light. 

Grim assessment, I cooed back  

Never lingering 

Never considering 

That father feigned acceptance  

through fume of his own bleed. 

 

I roll my shoulders and watch her slide  

Each time she turns an eye 

With sunshine intention 

spun by her heartfelt tortures  

That I always scoffed as null. 

 

From highland stone to salted coast 

Not born with Legacy 

But bestowed, 

And many lives she fostered  

With the title  

With the home. 

 

Time moulds her steps. 

Thickened clay, soaked to slide  

Wobbling with the whip of the wheel 

Sinking when the wire folds  

And rings how it does in her mind 

Shrieking, wailing drums. 

 

Every time she meets the boards 

A hand extends ever nearer. 

The gentle touch of an unseen God? 

Or a soulmate’s gauzy smile? 

 

Selfish, isn’t it? 

That I dare say I’m not ready… 

 

An ivory feather between ripe folds  

His words, again, an anchor. 

The billhook begins to glow  

As beneath loose skin, 

Beneath lost light  

Stands something fairer. 

 

Two hands 

Floured, right?  

Popping broth, crossings, soft.  

A venus, 

A genesis, 

A Legacy. 

 

The day she leaves, 

A generation’s seeds 

Will remain in the ever-floating breeze  

along the furrows of Mosher Road.