Prophecy


Bearing needles of lightening in his beak
to stitch the night's wounds
he flies to her in the time of Chaos
flies on the black waves
raised by a million voices that cry
to quench the silence of the streets
the violence of the skies
and the cold and the darkness
that eats their souls
From the inside out.

But it is too late
He is no longer enough.
His grave revelations
drift unheeded above the din
of the cities
his truths evaporate
in winds swelling hot and cold
lost among the fetid seeds
of their fear.
He is only a winged shadow
against their night.

When she knows he won't come
when she's waited as long as she can
when the lesion in her life
spreads so that
she can no longer
close it with a needle
with a thousand million needles
she drived her taloned tongue
through her breast
ignoring the psalms
and warnings of the prophets
of the fathers
of the sons.

She tastes blood and milk,
salt red and sweet white
mingled in forbidden nectar
and she licks her blood
from each black hair of the
single knifelong feather
he left her
so many lives ago.
She drifts in ebony dreams
of the father she'll never know
of the sons she'll never bear
of the mothers.

And when she finally wakes
and understands
he cannot hear her scream
so terribly small
in the glare of the morning sun.


- Lisa Lepovetsky