Pailei

he stalked her when the night fell like a black cloak, so heavy even the moon was masked in the folds. she was a pale star pressed to endless obsidian. i'm not afraid of you, she whispered to the darkness. said the rabbit to the wolf, the shadow replied, his voice like a dagger unsheathing.

gather up your whispers,   we are through standing dew-eyed like the doe drunk on meadow pollen who has never tasted the sulfur crack   of a hunter's shot as it splits the air   and severs the silence; we were not born to count the clouds like sheep as they float by on heaven's vault like lilies on a mirror-surface pond. we have voices and we must raise them; press our words to paper pages, etch them in our parchment skin,   tell our tales to the ten-thousand winds and listen as they circle back again, lifting hearts in their carved bone cages, sing souls the silky truth, and unravel transcendence in tiny sips until we understand

the sinking summer sun spilled scarlet across the trees,   painted the sky sweet peach, and pressed a last kiss of light across our tangled limbs as we swayed gently on the old porch swing.   blue paint chipped and curled   beneath our bare feet,   and a breath of wind made the chimes dance madly, dipping and spinning in the dying light. you smelled of fresh hay and cut grass, and a touch of the oil that rested in grooves of your long fingers as they pressed mine,   the even beat of your heart warm beneath my cheek. even now i remember the things we said when we said nothing at all— how a person can become   the meaning of

the bones have sung her doom. she knew the end before it began. she raises her blade—an invocation, an invitation, a wry acknowledgement to Fate and its sharp teeth. she wears blood like a mantle and the taste of iron on her tongue, the winged whispers of ten-thousand souls   gathered on her shoulders. soldiers lie scattered like breadcrumbs before that beggar-bird Death, and many more will fall before the day is done. she has led them here, into the fire   and ash, knowing they will burn. some things are worth ten-thousand souls.

she broke the crown upon his brow with a look, with eyes of ash and iron and the smoke of the forge curling warm around his sepulcher heart. the centuries and their sundry sorrows had long since scraped away his soul song; he had grown used to the swelling silence   and the slow rasp of his steps as he paced his prison, sat upon his stone throne, and traced the cracks in his waxen hands. then she slipped into his bleak kingdom like the moon coyly unveiling herself on a starless night, luminous, velvet-bright, a calla lily on black silk, a soft serenade that slipped like a dagger between the bone cage of his ribs and rolled him among t

oh, see i earn my keep by planting bones, a field forever fallow! i carve their cold beds from earth and stones, hey-oh, to the worms we go! just there is the berth of a soldier brave, he never saw that last blow! and there lies a penniless pauper's grave, hey-oh, to the worms we go! this graveyard's a good place to rest your heads, all lined up neatly in a row! old Tom'll tuck you up snug in your beds, hey-oh, to the worms we go! settle down, ghosties, it's time to sleep, these beds here, we'll never outgrow! your lullaby's the strike of a shovel deep, hey-oh, to the worms we go!

fasten your hair with a golden pin, fold your long limbs in the whisper of silk, frame each scar and callous with emeralds green. paint your lips the color of sin, consort with others of your ilk, forget your firm sword and its wicked gleam. traverse the glittering lies of court, trade your blade for arts more refined, become another ghost in gold and rue. evade the dreams of bitter blood sport, for though you can leave the war behind, you must know that it will never leave you.

sunlight spills across the cluttered kitchen counter like a cup overturned, alighting on an array of herbs, fistfuls of fibrous soldiers in sleek lines ready for the knife, the pestle,   to be pressed into a pastiche of protection beneath   the printed green-apple curtains clinging with the scents of   crushed cloves, bay, and vetiver carried on the sunny breath of morning over the   tessellated tile, leftover flour caught in the cracked one   in the corner   like a powdered kiss.

i met a wraith down by the graveyard gate, who bid me stay and listen for a while, and he said, every man shares the same fate, as he leered behind a bleak, bone-white smile. only look around you and you will find both king and pauper rest here in the ground, souls great and worthless in this space confined, whether the head was bare or golden-crowned. those who led a dull life rest right beside those who spent their whole lives seeking glory, so heed me, he said, fading in mid-stride, we all know the end of this old story— for the fate of man always comes to grief the same end all, and all our time too brief.

spring spread her apple-green skirts 'cross the coffee-colored earth and lifted up her leafy head to the bright sunshine in mirth; the smitten sun leaned down   to kiss her crown perfumed, spring blushed beneath the gold glow and a million flowers bloomed.