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Outlive It
Some get over a bad childhood,
they rise to the top of a hill
to set fire to the bloody rags of a choiceless youth.
The beacon flares, below a forest
of wide-eyed animals
watch as the sacrifice, now a smoldering fawn,
blunders among them, its throat cut and bleeding.
Others drag around a blind doll,
day by day the macabre manikin grows larger,
its face a picture of apathy,
for apathy is the ghostly dress of
all long dead ballerinas.
That hand-stitched doll
gets too heavy to bear, and so daily,
they must give it away to beggars and saints,
The doll is insane, its pain is a robber's key
that returns to unlock any cardboard castle,
or iron fortress.
When the wild dogs come
to scavenge among the bones of a childhood,
throw them something raw and still wriggling,
let them slaver and chew it over,
until they sicken,
then chop off their gray heads,
one by one.
Copyright ©
Eric Ashford
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