Hark,
the hungry hoards are raging
through
the ruins, loud and clear.
Distant,
slinking dogs are baying,
mother’s
heart is turned with fear.
Tattered
beggars circle, wheedling,
“Come,
give us your tiny one.
She
with swallows will be wheeling
in
darkened skies that cloud the sun.”
“Come,
give us your little daughter.
We
will tell her future ways
from
her hand, then hear her laughter
as
knuckle-bones she learns and plays.”
Cross
the baby’s hand with silver,
cross
her heart and look to die,
stabbed
straight through the gut by mother
in
whose hands the daggers lie.
Beggars’
chests are gored near knife-pits,
on
the ground the blood-pool dries.
Mother’s
transfixed by her lost wits
while,
above, the pocked moons rise.
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