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WHOSE SONG?
Thomas Glave
YES, NOW THEY'RE WAITING TO RAPE HER, but how
can they know? The girl with strum-vales, entire forests, behind
her eyes. Who has already known the touch of moondewed kisses, nightwing
sighs, on her teenage skin. Cassandra. Lightskinned, lean. Lovelier
to them for the light. How can they know? The darkskinned ones aren't
even hardly what they want. They have been taught, have learned well
and well. Them black bitches, that's some skank shit, they sing. Give
you VD on the woody, make your shit fall off. How can they know? Have
been taught. Cassandra, fifteen, in the light. On her way to the forests.
In the light. Hasn't known a man yet. Hasn't wanted to. How can they
know? She prefers Tanya's lips, the skin-touch of silk. Tanya, girlfriend,
sixteen and fine, dark glider, schoolmate-lover, large-nippled, -thighed.
Tanya. Who makes her come and come again when the mamas are away,
when houses settle back into silent time and wrens swoopflutter their
wings down into the nightbird's song. Tanya and Cassandra. Kissing.
Holding. Climbing and gliding. What the grown girls do, they think,
belly-kissing but shy. Holding. She makes me feel my skin, burrowing
in. Which one of them thinks that? Which one flies? Who can tell?
Climbing and gliding. Coming. Wet. Coming. Laughing. Smelling. Girlsex,
she-love, and the nightbird's song. Thrilling and trilling. Smooth
bellies, giving face, brushing on and on. Cassandra. Tanya swooping
down, brown girls, dusky flesh. How can they know? The boys have been
watching them, have begun to know things about them watchers know
or guess. The boys, touching themselves in nightly rage, watching
them. Wanting more of Cassandra because she doesn't want them. Wanting
to set the forests on fire, cockbrush those glens. How can they know?
They are there and they are there and they are watching. Now.
Sing this tale, then, of
a Sound Hill rape. Sing it, low and mournful, soft, beneath the kneeling
trees on either side of the rusty bridge out by Eastchester Creek;
where the sun hangs low over the sound and water meets the sky; where
the departed walk along Shore Road and the joggers run; where morning
rabbits leap away from the pounding jogger's step. Sing it far and
wide, this sorrow song woven into the cresting nightbird's blue. Sing
it, in that far-off place, far up away from it all, where the black
people live and think they've at last found peace; where there are
homes, small homes and large, with modest yards, fruit hedges, taxus,
juniper trees; where the silver hoses, coiled, sag and lean; where
the withered arms hanging out of second-story windows are the arms
of that lingering ghost or aging lonely busybody everybody knows.
In that northerly corner of the city where no elevated IRT train yet
comes; where the infrequent buses to Orchard Beach and Pelliam Bay
sigh out spent lives and empty nights when they run; where the sound
pulls watersmell through troubled dreams and midnight pains, the sleeping
loneliness and silence of a distant place. Sound Hill, beneath your
leaning trees and waterwash, who do you grieve for now? Sound Hill
girl of the trees and the girlflesh, where are you now? Will those
waters of the sound flow beside you now? Caress you with light-kisses
and bless you now? The City Island currents and the birds rush by
you now? O sing it. Sing it for that yellow girl, dark girl, brown
girl homely or fine, everygirl displaced, neither free nor named.
Sing it for that girl swinging her axe through the relentless days,
suckling a child or selling her ass in the cheap hotels down by the
highway truckers' stop for chump change. Sing it for this girl, swishing
her skirt and T-shirt, an almost-free thing, instinctual, throwing
her head back to the breeze. Her face lifted to the sky. Now, Jesus.
Walk here, Lamb. In thy presence there shall be light and light. Grace.
Cadence. A witness or a cry. Come, now. All together. And.
How could we know? Three
boys in a car, we heard, but couldn't be neighbors of ours. Had to
be from some other part of the world, we thought; the projects or
the Valley. Not from here. In this place every face knows every eye,
we thought, what's up here in the heart always is clear. But they
were not kind nor good, neither kin nor known. If they were anything
at all besides unseen, they were maimed. Three boys, three boys. In
a car. Long legs, lean hands. In a car. Bitter mouths, tight asses,
and the fear of fear. Boys or men and hard. In their car. Who did
not like it. Did not like the way those forest eyes gazed out at those
darker desert ones, at the eyes of that other who had known what it
was to be dark and loathed. Yo, darkskinned bitch. So it had been
said. Yo, skillet ass. Don't be cutting your eyes at me, bitch, I'll
fuck your black ass up. It had been said. Ugly black bitch. You need
some dick. Them eyes gone get you killed, rolling them at me like
that. It had been said. Had to be, had to be from over by Edenwald,
we thought. Rowdy, raunchy, no kind of class. Nasty homies on the
prowl, not from this 'hood. How could we know? Three boys, fretful,
frightened, angry. In a row. The burning rope had come to them long
ago in willed and willful dreams, scored mean circles and scars into
their once-gorgeous throats. The eyes that had once looked up in wonder
from their mother's arms had been beaten, hammered into rings, dark
pain-pools that belied their depth. Deeper. Where they lived, named
and unnamed. How could they know? Know that those butterflies and
orchids of the other world, that ice-green velvet of the other world,
the precious stones that got up and wept before the unfeeling sky
and the bears that slept away entire centuries with memories of that
once warm sweet milk on their lips, were not for them? So beaten,
so denied, as they were and as they believed, their own hands had
grown to claws over the years; savaged their own skin. Needles? Maybe,
we thought. In the reviling at large, who could tell? Pipes, bottles?
Vials? So we thought. Of course. Who could know and who who knew would
tell? Who who knew would sing through the veil the words of that song,
about the someone-or-thing that had torn out their insides and left
them there, far from the velvet and the butterflies and the orchid-time?
The knower's voice, if voice it was, only whispered down bitter rains
when they howled, and left us only the curve of their skulls beneath
the scarred flesh on those nights, bony white, when the moon smiled.
And she, so she: alone that
day. Fresh and wet still from Tanya's arms, pajama invitations and
TV nights, after-dark giggles and touches, kisses, while belowstairs
the mama slept through world news, terrorist bombings, cleansings
ethnic and unclean. Alone that day, the day after, yellow girl, walking
out by the golden grayswishing Sound, higher up along the Shore Road
way and higher, higher up where no one ever walks alone, higher still
by where the dead bodies every year turn up (four Puerto Rican girl-things
cut up, garbage-bagged, found there last year: bloated hands, swollen
knees, and the broken parts); O higher still, Cassandra, where the
fat joggers run, higher still past the horse stables and the smell
of hay, higher yet getting on to where the whitefolks live and the
sundowns die. Higher. Seeking watersmell and sheen for those forests
in her eyes; seeking that summer sundown heat on her skin; seeking
something away from 'hood catcalls and yo, bitch, let me in. Would
you think she doesn't already know what peacefulness means, contains?
She's already learned of the dangers of the too-high skirt, the things
some of them say they'd like to put between her knees. The blouse
that reveals, the pants that show too much hip. Ropes hers and theirs.
Now seeking only a place where she can walk away, across the water
if need be, away from the beer cans hurled from cars, the What's up,
bitch yells and the burning circle-scars. Cassandra, Cassandra. Are
you a bitch out here? The sun wexing goldsplash across her now says
no. The water stretching out to Long Island summerheat on the other
side says no, and the birds wheeling overhead, okay, okay, they
cry, call down the skytone, concurring: the word is no. Peace and
freedom, seasmell and free. A dark girl's scent riding on her thighs.
Cassandra. Tanya. Sing it.
But they watching. The three.
Singing. Listen: a bitch ain't nothing but a ho, sing those three.
Have been taught. (But by whom?) Taught and taut. Taught low and harsh,
that rhythm. Fierce melody. Melodylessness in mixture, lovelessness
in joy. Drunk on flame, and who the fuck that bitch think she is anyway?
they say - for they had seen her before, spoken to her and her kind;
courted her favor, her attentions, in that car. Can't talk to nobody,
bitch, you think you all a that? Can't speak to nobody, bitch, you
think your pussy talks and shit? How could they know then? - of her
forests, smoldering? Know and feel? - how in that growing silent heat
those inner trees had uprooted, hurled stark branches at the outer
sky? The firestorm and after-rain remained unseen. Only the lashes
fluttered, and the inner earth grew hard. With those ropes choking
so many of them in dreams, aware of the circles burnt into their skins,
how could they know? How could they not know?
Robbie. Dee. Bernard. Three
and three. Young and old. Too old for those jeans sliding down their
asses. Too young for the rope and the circle's clutch. Too old to
love so much their own wet dreams splashed out onto she they summoned
out of that uncentered roiling world. She, summoned, to walk forth
before their fire as the bitch or cunt. So they thought, would think
and sing: still too young for the nursing of that keening need, the
unconscious conscious wish to obliterate through vicious dreams who
they were and are, have been, and are not. Blackmenbrothers, lovers,
sons of strugglers. Sharecroppers, cocksuckers, black bucks and whores.
Have been and are, might still be, and are not. A song. To do away
with what they have and have not; what they can be, they think, are
told by that outer chorus they can be - black boys, pretty boys, big
dicks, tight asses, pretty boys, black scum, or funky homie trash
- and cannot. Their hearts replaced by gnashing teeth, dirt; the underscraping
grinch, an always-howl. Robbie Dee Bernard. Who have names and eyelids,
fears, homiehomes. Watching now. Looking out for a replacement for
those shredded skins. Cause that bitch think she all a that, they
sing. Word, got that lightskin, good hair, think she fly. Got them
titties that need some dick up in between. The flavor. Not like them
darkskinned bitches, they sing. (But do the words have joy?) Got to
cut this bitch down to size, the chorus goes. A tune. Phat pussy.
Word, G! Said hey-ho! Said a-hey-ho! Word, my brother. My nigger.
Sing it.
So driving. Looking. Watching.
Seeing. Their words a blue song, the undercolor of the nightbird's
wing. Is it a song you have heard before? Heard it sung sweet and
clear to someone you hate before? Listen: - Oh shit, yo, there she
go. Right up there. Straight on. Swinging her ass like a high-yellow
ho. Said hey-ho! Turn up the volume on my man J Live J. Drive up,
yo. Spook the bitch. Gonna get some serious pussy outa this shit.-
Driving, slowing, slowing down. Feeling the circles, feeling their
own necks. Burning skins, cockheads fullstretched and hard. Will she
have a chance, dreaming of girlkisses, against that hard? In the sun.
Here. And.
Pulling up. - So, Miss Lightskin,
they sing, what you doing out here? Walking by yourself, you ain't
scared? Ain't scared somebody gonna try to get some of your skin?
Them titties looking kinda fly, girl. Come on, now. Get in.
Was it then that she felt
the smoldering in those glens about to break? The sun gleaming down
silver whiteheat on her back? And O how she had only longed
to walk the walk. To continue on and on and on and through to
those copses where, at the feet of that very old and most wise woman-tree
of all, she might gaze into those stiller waters of minnow-fishes,
minnow-girls, and there yes! quell quell quell quell quell the flames.
As one of them then broke through her glens, to shout that she wasn't
nothing anyway but a yellow bitch with a whole lotta attitude and
a skanky cunt. As (oh yes, it was true, rivers and fire, snake daggers
and black bitches, she had had enough) she flung back words on what
exactly he should do with his mother's cunt, cause your mother, nigger,
is the only motherfucking bitch out here. And then? Who could say
or know? The 5-0 were nowhere in sight; all passing cars had passed;
only the wheeling birds and that drifting sun above were witnesses
to what they could not prevent. Cassandra, Cassandra. -Get in the
car, bitch.- -Fuck no, I won't. Leave me alone. Leave me- trying to
say Fuck off, y'all leave me the fuck alone, but whose hand was that,
then, grabbing for her breast? Whose hand is that, on her ass,
pressing now, right now, up into her flesh? -Stop it, y'all. Get the
fuck off before-screaming and crying. Cursing, running. Sneakered
feet on asphalt, pursuit, and the laughter loud. An easy catch. -We
got you now, bitch.- Who can hear? The sun can only stare, and the
sky is gone.
Driving, driving, driving
on. Where can they take her? Where will they? They all want some,
want to be fair. Fair is fair: three dicks, one cunt. That is their
song. Driving on. Pelliam Bay Park? they think. But naw, too many
people, niggers and Ricans with a whole buncha kids and shit. (The
sun going down. Driving on.) How about under the bridge, by Eastchester
Creek? That's it, G! Holding her, holding, but can't somebody slap
the bitch to make her shut up? Quit crying, bitch. Goddamn. A crying-ass
bitch in a little funky-ass car. Now weeping more. Driving on. - Gonna
call the police, she says, crying more; choking in that way they like,
for then (oh, yes, they know) in that way from smooth head to hairy
base will she choke on them. They laugh.
-What fucking 5-0 you gonna
call, bitch? You lucky we ain't take your yellow ass over to the projects.
Fuck your shit in the elevator, throw your ass off the roof. These
bitches, they laugh. Just shut up and sit back. Sit back, sit back.
-Driving on.
Now the one they call Robbie
is talking to her. -Open it, he says. Robbie, O Robbie. Eager and
edgy, large-eyed and fine. Robbie, who has a name, unspoken hopes;
private dreams. How can they know? Will he be dead within a year like
so many others? A mirrored image in a mirror that shows them nothing?
A wicked knife's slide from a brother's hand to his hidden chewed-up
heart? Shattered glass, regret. Feeling now only the circle around
his neck that keeps all in thrall. For now he must be a man for them.
Must show the steel. Robbie don't be fronting, he prays they think,
Robbie be hard. Will they like you better, Robbie, then, if you be
hard? Will the big boys finally love you, take you in, Robbie, if
you be hard? But it's deep sometimes, isn't it, Robbie, with all that
hard? Deep and low ... He knows. Knows the clear tint of that pain.
Alone and lonely ... unknown, trying to be hard. Not like it was back
then when then when he said you was pretty. Remember? All up
in his arms ... one of your boys, Darrell J. In his arms. Where nobody
couldn't see. Didn't have to be hard. Rubbing up, rubbing. Kissing
up on you. Licking. Talking shit about lovelove and all a that But
naw man he said the first time (Darrell J., summertime, 10 PM.,
off the court, hotwet, crew gone home, had an extra 40, sweaty chest
neck face, big hands, shoulders, smile, was fine), just chillin
whyn't you come on hang out?-so said Darrell J. with the hands
and the yo yo yo yo going on and on with them eyes and mouth tongue
up in his skin my man - : kissing up on Robbie the second time,
pretty Robbie, the third time and the fourth and the we did and
he kissing licking holding y'all two and O Robbie Robbie Robbie.
A homie's song. Feeling then. Underneath him, pretty. In his arms.Where
nobody couldn't see didn't have to he hard kissing up on him shy shy
and himinyou youinhim Robbie, Robbie. Where has the memory gone?
Back then, straddling hips, homiekisses and the nightbird's song.
But can't go back there, can you? To feel and feel. Gots to be hard.
Can't ever touch him again, undress him, kiss his thing ... feel it
pressing against the teeth and the slow-hipped song. Black skin on
skin and
- but he was holding
onto me and sliding, sliding way up inside sucking coming inside me
in me in hot naw didn't need no jimmy aw shit now hold on holding
him and I was I was Robbie Robbie Robbie Darrell J. together we was
and I we I we came we hotwet on his belly my side sliding over him
under him holding and we came we but naw, man, can't even be doing
that motherfucking punk shit out here. You crazy? You bugging?
Niggers be getting smoked dusty for that shit. Y'all ain't never seen
me do that. Gots to be hard. -So open it' bitch, he says. Lemme
get my fingers on up in there. Awright, awright. Damn, man, he says,
nobody don't got a jimmy? This bitch stinks, man, he says, know I'ma
probably get some VD shit on my hands and shit. They laugh. - He a
man, all right. Robbie! Ain't no faggot, yo. Not like we heard.
They laugh. -Just put a sock on it, the one they call Dee says.
Chillchill, yo. Everybody gonna get their chance.
And the sun. Going down,
going down. Light ending now, fire and ice, blue time watersheen and
the darkened plunge. Sink, golden sun. Rest your bronze head in the
Sound and the sea beyond. The birds, going down, going down. Movement
of trees, light swathed in leaves. Going down, going down. And.
Hard to see now, but that's
okay, they say. This bitch got enough for everybody here under the
bridge. No one's around now, only rusty cars and rats. Who cares if
they shove that filthy rag into her mouth and tie it there? It's full
of turpentine and shit, but the night doesn't care. The same night
that once covered them in swamps from fiery light. Will someone come
in white robes to save a lightskinned bitch this time?
Hot. Dark. On the backseat.
Burning bright. Burning. On the backseat. Fire and rage. -Naw, man,
Robbie, not so hard, man. You gone wear the shit out fore I get my
chance.- Who said that? Which one in the dark? O but can't tell, for
all are hidden now, and all are hard. The motherfucking rigorous
shit, one of them says. Shut up, bitch. Was that you, Bernard? Did
you miss your daddy when he went off with the one your mama called
a dirty nigger whore, Bernard? Was that where you first learned everything
there was to learn, and nothing? - there, Bernard? When he punched
you in the face and left you behind, little boy Bernard? You cried.
Without. A song unheard. A song like the shadowrain - wasn't it? The
shadowrain that's always there so deep, deep down inside your eyes,
Bernard. Cold rain inside. Tears and tears. Then fists and kicks on
a black shitboy's head. Little punk-looking nigger dumped in a foster
home, age ten, named Bernard. Fuckhead faggot ass, the boys there
said. The ones who stuck it up in you. Again and again. The second
and the third ... -don't hurt me, don't!- screamed that one they called
the faggot ass pussy bitch. You, Bernard. How could they know? Know
that the little bitch punk scrunched up under the bed had seen the
whole night and afterward and after alone? Bernard? Hurts, mama.
Daddy-. Rain. Little faggot ass punk. Break his fucking face,
yo. Kick his faggot ass down the stairs. Then he gone suck my dick.
Suck it, bitch, fore we put this motherfucking hammer up your ass.
The one you trusted most of all in that place, in all those places
. . . everywhere? Bernard? The one who said he'd have your back no
matter what. Little man, my man, he said. Smiling down. His teeth
so white and wide. Smiling down. Smiling when he got you by the throat,
sat on your chest and made you swallow it. Swallow it, bitch, he sang.
Smiling down. Choking, choked. Deep inside the throat. Where has the
memory gone? Something broken, then a hand. A reaching-out howl within
the rain. A nightbird's rage. A punk, used up. Leave the nigger there,
yo, they said. Til the next time. And the next. On the floor. Under
the bed. Under. Bleeding under. You, Bernard.
The words to every song
on earth are buried deep somewhere. Songs that must be sung, that
must never be sung. That must be released from deep within the chest
yet pulled back and held. Plaintive and low, they rail; buried forever
beneath the passing flesh, alone and cold, they scream. The singer
must clutch them to the heart, where they are sanctified, nurtured,
healed. Songs which finally must be released yet recalled, in that
place where no one except the singer ever comes, in one hand caressing
the keys of life wounded, ravaged, in the other those of the precious
skin and life revealed. The three of them and Cassandra know the words.
Lying beneath them now and blind, she knows the words. Tasting turpentine
and fire, she knows the words.
-Hell no, yo, that bitch
ain't dead.- A voice. -Fucked up, yo. The rag's in her mouth, how
we gone get some mouth action now?- -Aw, man, fuck that shit.- Who
says that? -My turn. My turn.- They know the words.
Now comes Dee. Can't even
really see her, has to navigate. Wiggles his ass a little, farts softly
to let off stress. -Damn, Dee, nasty motherfucker! they laugh. But
he is busy, on to something. Sniffs and sniffs. At the bitch's asshole.
At her cunt. -Cause yeah, yo, he says, y'all know what's up with this
shit. They be saying this bitch done got into some bulldagger shit.
Likes to suck pussy, bulldagger shit.- Word? -The phattest bitch around,
yo, he says. Bulldagger shit.
Dee. DeeDee. Someone's boy.
Has a place that's home. Eastchester, or Mount V. Has a heart that
hates his skin and a mind half gone. Is ugly now, got cut up, but
smoked the nigger who did it. Can't sleep at night, wanders seas;
really wants to die. The lonely bottle might do it if the whiffs up
don't. The empty hand might do it if the desire can't. What has been
loved and not loved, what seeks still a place. The same hand, pushed
by the once-winsome heart, that before painted angels, animals, miraculous
creatures. Blank walls leaped into life, lightspeed and light. When
(so it seemed) the whole world was light. But was discouraged, led
into tunnels, and then of course was cut. The eyes went dim. Miraculous
creatures. Where have the visions gone? Look, now, at that circle
around his neck. Will he live? Two young ones and a dark girl waiting
back there for him, frightened - will he live? Crushed angels drowned
in St. Ides - will he live? When he sells the (yes, that) next week
to the undercover 5-0 and is set up, will he live? When they shoot
him in the back and laugh at the stain that comforts them, will he
live?
But now he's happy, has
found it! - the hole. The soft little hole, so tight, down there,
as he reaches up to squeeze her breasts. Her eyes are closed but she
knows the words. That bitch ain't dead. How can they know?
When there is time there's time, and the time is now. Time to bang
the bulldagger out of her, he sings. Listen to his song: -I'ma give
you a baby bitch.- (She knows the words).
- Got that lightskin, think
you all that, right, bitch? Word, I want me some lightskin on my dick,
yo. When I get done this heifer ain't gone be half a ho.
You know know? Gonna get mines, til you know who you dis and who you
don't. Til you know we the ones in control, sing it! Got the
flavor.- Dim-eyed, banging out his rage. Now, a man. Banging out his
fear like the others, ain't even hardly no faggot ass. Def jam and
slam, bang bang shebam. On and on as he shoots high, shoots far. .
. laughter, but then a sense of falling, careening... sudden fear.
It doesn't matter. The song goes on.
Night. Hell, no, broods
the dim, that bitch ain't dead. Hasn't uttered half a sound since
they began. hasn't opened her eyes to let the night look in again;
hasn't breathed to the soft beating of the nightbird's wing. The turpentine
rag in place. Cassandra, Cassandra. The rag, in place. Cassandra.
Is she feeling something now? Cassandra. Will they do anything more
to her now? Cassandra, will they leave you there? Focusing on flies,
not meeting each other’s eyes, will they leave you there? Running
back from the burning forests behind their own eyes, the crackling
and the shame? Will they leave you there? - Push that bitch out on
the ground, the one they call Dee says. Over there, by them cars and
shit.- Rusty cars, a dumping ground. So, Cassandra. Yes. They'll leave
you there.
Were they afraid? Happy?
Who can tell? Three dark boys, three men, driving away in a battered
car. Three boy-men, unseen, flesh, minds, heart. Flame. In their car.
O my God, three rapists, the pretty lady in her Volvo thinks, locking
her doors at the traffic light. In their car. Blood on the backseat,
cum stains, even hair. Who can tell? It's time to get open now. Time
to numb the fear. - Get out the whiff, yo.- 40s and a blunt. - That
bitch got what she deserved.- Those words, whiffs up, retreat, she
deserved it, deserved it - and they are gone. Mirrored images
in shattered glass, desire and longing, chill throbbing, and they
are gone. The circles cleaving their necks. Flesh, blood and flame.
A whiff and a 40.-We fucked that bitch good, G.- Night. Nightnight.
Hush dark silence. Fade. They are gone.
Cassandra. What nightbirds
are searching and diving for you now? What plundered forests are waiting
for you now? The girl-trees are waiting for you, and so is she. Tanya.
The girl-trees. Mama. How can they know? Their eyes are waiting, searching,
and will soon be gray. The rats are waiting. They are gray, Cassandra,
Cassandra. When the red lights come flashing on you, will they know?
Fifteen, ripped open. Will they know? Lightskinned bitch nigger ho,
went that song. Will they know? Girl-trees in a burning forest ...
they will know. And the night....
Where is she, they're wondering,
why hasn't she come home?
They can't know what the
rats and the car-carcasses know.
Cassandra? they are calling.
Why don't you answer when night-voices call you home?
Night....
Listen now to the many night voices calling, calling soft, Cassandra.
Come. Carrying. Up. Cassandra. Come. Out and up.
What remains is what remains. Out and up. They will
carry her. A feeling of hands and light. Then the red lights will
come. Up and up. But will she see? Will she hear? Will
she know?
The girl-trees are screaming. That is their song.
It will not appear on tomorrow's morning news.
But then - come now, ask yourself - whose song, finally shall this
be? Of four dark girls, or four hundred, on their way to lasting fire
in Sunday school? Of a broken-backed woman, legs bent? Her tune? Of
a pair of hands, stitching for - (but they'll never grow). Of four
brothers rapping, chugging? - a slapbeat in the chorus? Doing time?
Something they should know?
A song of grieving ships, bodies, torch-lit roads?
(-But then now O yes remember remembe,r well that time,
face, place or thing: how those ten thousand million billion other
ashes eyelids arms uncountable dark ceaseless burnt and even faces
once fluttered, fluttered foreve, in someone's dream unending, dream
of no escape, beneath a black-blueblack sea: fluttered, flutter still
and descend, now faces ashes eyelids dark reflection and skin forever
flame: descend, descend over laughing crowds.)
A song of red earth roads. Women crying and men. Red hands, gray mouths,
and the circle's clutch. A song, a song. Of sorrowing suns. Of destruction,
self-destruction, when eyes lay low. A song –
But whose song is it? Is
it yours? Or mine?
Hers?
Or theirs . . . - ?
-But a song. A heedless,
feckless tune. Here, where the nighttime knows. And, well -
Yes, well -
- So, Cassandra. Now, Cassandra.
Sing it.
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Fiction