<\/p>\n
If lightly discarded feathers
\nand a glossy, virgin-white flower
\nfall at my feet as I pass by
\nI might not cast an arched shadow
\nof a doubt
\ntrapped in a corner, tied around my ankles.<\/p>\n
Each fine hair weighs a ton
\nin the endless wheel.
\nThey mate with immaterial gravity
\nthey collapse like they were
\nmade of iron.<\/p>\n
Loan me some words
\nto muffle with language the sound
\nof my knees breaking
\nas my wizened legs crumble, startled,
\nfractured under the weight of centuries-old,
\nstraight-jacketed sand.<\/p>\n
The mantle of my eyelid
\nmoves over the almost sticky,
\nmarble-cold surface of my eyeball
\nwith one downward swiping stroke.
\nIt descends like an assertion
\nlike a death sentence.<\/p>\n
We were trampled, mocked,
\nleft to wither for a laugh.
\nWe, who had been once called
\nthe heroes in the Myths.<\/p>\n
We danced with the God within,
\nwith the Devil within,
\nand with all the spectres
\nthat march between them.<\/p>\n
We left nothing to chance
\nand the promises we kept
\nhidden from sight, inside steel
\nboxes sealed with rancour.<\/p>\n
Daily we were fed
\nmostly disappointment
\nand with each spoonful
\nwe grew accustomed to the taste.<\/p>\n
We celebrated our defeats
\none after the other.
\nAnd when we finally won
\nwe didn\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n
We did our best to misunderstand
\nwe tried time and again to unlearn
\nbut the patterns were ingrained,
\nwe\u2019d turned flaws into routine.<\/p>\n
This is the rain
\nyour mother predicted
\nwould fall grey
\nin the evening.
\nShe said the rain
\nwould leave oil
\nstains late
\nin the evening.
\nSlimy droplets
\nmother said
\nwill wash over steps
\nthick as mucus when you\u2019re sick.
\nShe warned you
\nnot to be fooled by a clear sky
\nin the early hours
\nof an unremarkable day.<\/p>\n
We are Fallen.
\nSee them Innocents over
\nthere, beyond the Styx?
\nNo; we, the Fallen,
\nhave relinquished our privilege.
\nThem Innocents they believe
\nin the joy of Chinese shadows.
\nWe, the Fallen, have burnt
\nall the paper silhouettes.
\nOur fingers, too, got burnt.
\nSee them Innocents? See
\ntheir hands? No scars.
\nWe, the Fallen, now know.
\nNow we hurt on this shore.
\nThis is our barren garrison.
\nThem Innocents they sleep
\nwith their minds shut.
\nWe, the Fallen,
\nstand in the lookout,
\nsurveying the shore of
\nno exemption;
\neager sentinels for knowledge.<\/p>\n
They call us Sinners
\nbut we do no penitence
\nwe entertain no remorse.
\nThem Innocents they are
\nwhole, they preserve
\ntheir smooth, unsoiled skin.
\nWe, the Fallen,
\nspeak with creases on our voices.
\nOur scars are of liminal tissue,
\nfusing past and future,
\nmelting pain and fear.
\nThem Innocents they
\nhave their tongues
\nstuck to their palates, and
\na permanent smile
\npainted on their faces.
\nLittle do they know
\nthat we, the Fallen,
\nwould slaughter them
\nby the scores; would seal
\ntheir smiles once and for all.
\nIf only we, the Fallen, could
\ncross back to the other shore.<\/p>\n
On Friday she touched his teeth.
\nShe said, pointing at the window,
\n\u201cLook! A three-headed monkey!\u201d
\nWhen he raised his head
\nwith his lips slightly parted
\nshe took her index finger and put it inside his mouth.
\nStudying with care the lower row
\nof teeth almost imperceptibly crooked.
\nThen caressing his incisors.
\nShe was shocked to find blunt edges,
\nrather than sharpness
\nand decided she needed more time
\nto conduct a thorough exploration.<\/p>\n
Next Friday, at night, while he was sleeping.
\nShe forced herself once more
\ninto his mouth.
\nShe introduced her index finger again, then her whole hand.
\nBefore she knew it she had landed on his tongue.
\nNow, things looked quite different
\nfrom the inside.
\nShe shouted at him: \u201cLet me out!\u201d
\nBut he couldn\u2019t hear her scream
\nfrom inside his mouth.
\nThe wonder and wetness of the soft
\nsurface of the tongue
\nand then the hard enamel of his back teeth.
\nIt was a strange, strange landscape.
\nSo much less strident than she had expected.
\nYet sublime.<\/p>\n
Inevitably, after a few moments,
\nhe swallowed her whole.
\nThere, inside the warmth of his cavities
\n\u201cthis is exactly where I needed to be\u201d
\nshe thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By all Means, Sure, Certainly, Absolutely<\/strong>
\nThe actor who played the gravedigger was my friend\u2019s father. After his parents split, we\u2019d cut class to deal stud in his mother\u2019s basement. My first time voting was in the Charlottetown referendum, a constitutional bed skirt hung out to dry like poorly laundered regionalism. When my friend\u2019s father showed up at the polling station without ID, I vouched for him, though I wondered why he\u2019d driven there without a licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3952,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions\/3952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}