Grace

The world ticks by like a bomb, like a bird
stumbling breathless, sometimes wingless.

Eyes lowered, she’s in red only.
The hems drop lifeless into the water.
Drowned crimson, they swish.
This vivification is a memory, the after-currents of hushed koi careening by.

She stills and lets scripture dissolve...
A fish formed the world between its two supple, wet fins.

And there is clockwork in water.
The koi fountain’s deeper movements whirl like cogs,
teeth clicking noiselessly
against the skeleton of a boy drowned by an older lover.

She imagines him glassy eyed
and mouthing: in screaming love speak everything
and please stop.

She pinches her fingers,
stares down, imagines his ghost pushing the fish
into bubbles of water that leave the surface
and float.

He orchestrates and they hover, they glisten.
She blinks and they’ve burst.

The gloves chafe between her fingers
with the papery hush of scripture being smoothed out.
She stands,
her dress suddenly colder, dripping.

The world ticks by like a bomb, like a bird
and koi are just flesh and gold.



Inspired by ‘flesh and gold by =GunnerRomantic