Work Text:
A rusted quill,
Stained by years of misuse,
Scratches at worn fabric.
It longs for the simplicity of paper,
Yet it expresses these longing by lashing out.
Desperate strokes shred the cloth.
They bleed.
They break.
Ink spills and dots the footnotes.
An explosion of color
An imitation of art
Yellowed lilies soak up the warmth.
Ground-shaking and reality-breaking
And yet the world does not halt.
The world does not stand to negotiate,
Does not erase what has been sketched.
It simply rolls by,
A circle rounded with no end.
A rotation that was inevitable yet unpredictable.
Tears in the fabric cling to wholeness.
Glossy stitches attempt to fix what can only be
Mended.
And years later the subject of our revision will rest
On the shoulders of a wearier figure,
Joints popped,
Arms loosened,
On oaky floors dusted by years of footprints,
Boards bent and worn by a stool's shadow.
A simple throne
On which I used to perch,
Yielding my mighty sword.
Regaling tales of what this shop once held.
A fairy tale whispered from the cracked lips of wooden boys,
Boys who were whittled into weaker men.
Fractions of fiction rattled out from a marred toy,
Stained with ink,
Knees weak.
Held together by white strings
And silver lies.
A puppet-maker's sonnet.