the color of blood

Free Verse

Photo by João Barbosa on Unsplash

The dizzy sun rose on a far-off town
where she’d gone,
leaving as the hand of Spring
turned the redbud and the dogwood green:

she’d mend a fracture for her only girl
as only blood can do, then be home —

but the news came back too soon: we spoke

because the quiet
lay as a sour, uninvited guest

or a sudden, early frost. We sensed
desultory crevices, saw
the queasy arc
of sundown in its waning hour —

and through a breeze as light as lavender

we pictured her
in the arms of something dark, dressed

in crimson, whispering
how the stars would soon appear

while he stripped her girlhood bare
and stole the promise of another year.

With a flutter of his giant wings,
he swept her bones into the wind: another casual errand
done — but not for us, no we

will talk of her