We smell
of gunpowder and scorching oak,
our
faces ochre and soapstone with sweat,
bonfire-skirters,
cauled in the milky smoke
we
track, sky-mirrored: repaying our debt
to the
chilling world-glitter, the serpent
coiling
through white ash and embers of stars
lapped
in its sloughing nebulae, regent
of spent
darknesses and birthing hours,
fire-grist of the dead; their beacons. And ours,
as this
globe turns nightside among the spheres
breathlessly flinging comets and pulsars
in
saltpetre handfuls, the brand of years
burned
back to that farthest spiraling bright,
laying
in soot and sparks our road of light.
About the Author:
Sonya Taaffe has a confirmed addiction to
myth, folklore, and dead languages. Her poem “Matlacihuatl’s
Gift” shared first place for the 2003 Rhysling Award, and poems
and short stories of hers have been been nominated for the
Gaylactic Spectrum Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Locus
Award, shortlisted for the SLF Fountain Award, and honorably
mentioned in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. A
respectable amount of her short fiction and poetry can be found
in Postcards from the Province of Hyphens and Singing
Innocence and Experience (Prime Books). She
holds master's degrees in Classics
from Brandeis and
Yale.
