The khimarred woman sings a five note lament through cellophane, Paleolithic stone, a labyrinth of drywall, hanging, rusted coils Mississippi mud and the blood in her throat While the ghosts in Aokighara the bones of my father the unfed mice on the sewer grate They hear her notes as one hears a memory
It's like a flare, they think Not the flare itself, but the trail of magnesium all that drags after the glow the echo, a disembodied wish futile as it may seem
a shattered lullaby for the kaki tree who peers through heartwood to watch the farmers' hands fetch her mango hearts, fifty children from her languid limbs their bodies tossed into guillotine baskets her leaves curl to their touch
It is too much to ask of any one being. The wind whirls consensus
Amidst the feeble proclamations that “Happiness is state of mind,” I incant in the basement ancient prayers of survival. Resuscitate, rejuvenate me I was just a kid, fumbling through the dark woods Witnessing the plumes of smoke from the brutes laboring in the yardhouse
Saliva to straw Paper and grass to wire I've thatched a home in the brush in the thicket where I gnaw on my hands and my back's against the morning dew I hear the eulogizing orioles singing from their choral tome soothing these baptismal lashes in a canopy of pines where I wish the starlings could carry us off.