Empty-Handed

Who will look for the girl
With her heart on a string
Dragging in the dust behind her?
I felt the sudden ice of emptiness
The very moment her foot kissed the earth in escape
Gently but tense
As she covered her ears against wailing winds
That buffeted her body and made it inadequate
And whispered at every inch of exposed flesh
Chafing away the finite layers
Until only blood and bone remained
To collapse upon themselves in the dirt

And who will follow her
To collect the pieces of disintegrated flesh
As her body fell away like dead scales
Only to be scattered
By the breaking machine she trailed behind her
Which gradually slowed and softly stopped
As her hands disappeared and the thread,
Which linked the two, also fell away
Into the stinking pile of blood and bone and dirt?

But I will be the one to lift her heart
And place it at the crest of that mound
As a headstone and to help mark the distance
From where I first felt her absence flood my own heart
To where I saw hers dead on the ground