After kissing earth, fever peels
        skin from the hands of fate. It's rich
        enough to grow armies of men
        spearing each other in that harvest.

        Plumes appear in startled waves
        wakeful to noisy nails. They buckle
        from the heat, brazen as initiation
        boiling blood into inky consonants.

        Buried in each word, a golden
        crested Egyptian moon quivers
        in shadowy oracles blessed by
        the bright knife of fidelity. Vows

        are nothing when the death of snakes
        coil deeper than wisdom's betrayal
        spiralling with each child Cadmus
        sired, then lost to the Nile. No sorry

        written in black ever matched blatant
        attacks folded into papyrus frozen
        in another senseless tomb darker
        than the pit of every dragon's eye.

Copyright © Alison Eastley, 2004. All Rights Reserved.