Waiting

Waiting
by anonymus

Pale willow girls wait by the river, brides of the water,
Guppies swim through their veins, silver darts of bright pain.
Their names are hieroglyphs of mist, frost and rain.
They walk barefoot in the snow, leaving tracks so they know the way back,
A tracery of breadcrumbs that the ravens will never eat.

Twelve princesses slip underground,
Dance in slippers of tattered frayed silk,
Corkscrews of ribbon, stiff with blood and melted tallow.
They inject themselves with music until their eyes hum like bumble bees.
Then they sleepwalk through the day in a haze of yearning
For fierce wet stone beneath their frenzy of feet, of bones.
When they kiss they taste blood.
They taste honeyed tears.

The brides walk by blank storefronts, by scraps of words,
"Joe's Dry Cleaners", "Nick loves Alicia", "Please, oh please".
The town huddles waiting for checks, food stamps and jobs,
In a boarded up movie palace, the wood charred by some great fire
Black as the ravens that feed Elijah rice,
A preacher preaches. God's wrath? God's love?
They no longer know or care.
Every week, they find someone hanged in the forest,
Their necks stretched slender as frayed ribbons.
The town waits for four men on horses to come,
Feeding their children thin soup and soft crackers.

In a house whose rooms they never bothered to count,
The willow girls sleep lulled by the sound of feet against stone,
Of ice breaking beneath iron horseshoes, a high pierced whinny,
Waiting for the river to rise. They will be wedded.
The princesses will dance until they are whirlwinds of bone, honey and snow,
Their voices harsh as a raven's caw.
The town will sleep, their eyes hooded with pieces of silver
While the hanged man marks doors with charcoal "X"s.