By: Hunter Christian
Wrought-iron gates shoved open with rusty-aged \'creaks’
To the murky pond a lone swan lowers its beak
To the sky vacant eyes look for solace
To rounded ground eyes gaze upon physalia physalis
Outwardly spawned ripples leave her encircled
A girl clenches her knees listlessly postured
Her body curled
Upon the boy who lost her
Opportunity cost her
Reversal of fortune favored
A woman jasmine scented and peppermint flavored
A girl’s temperament savored
The only gift God ever gave her
Making the boy cautiously braver
Making him her would be savior
Making her his eternal neighbor
By God, by-the-way, by-and-by, “what lie?”
“For goodness sake,” she lashed out, she cried with shouts
She faced his face, washed off indignation\'s filthy disgrace, and then she said, “Good riddance, goodbye!”
“I’m glad your dead”
“Why can’t you just let me die?”
“Why can’t you leave my aching head?”
Sparrows will not yield nor waver
To the angry cardinal neighbors
A hawk plucked her newborn from his nest
Lonely beneath it all she’s nature\'s unknowing guest
The goings-on, a delicate fawn
A half-hour til’ its fateful dawn
Just like the boy he once was and now wasn’t
She’s present tense to his past tense, long gone
She’d kiss him if only she could, but she mustn\'t
An aged barrel of whiskey sat
Its innards elixir for the fixer
Jacks over nines said the \'grapevine’
Intermingled with \'this-an-that’s’
A quarter and a dime a shoe shine
Gossip flows like wine
And, her bounty levied upon his head
Of circumstances bechance
If only the pennance paid were dread
If only those better angels of man could\'ve halted the Devil’s advance
If her words registered heard by his ears
His parlance
She\'d wipe away all the years and all the tears
And, never had taken that foolhardy chance
Dice rolled cannot be unrolled
A rug and its myriad folds
To touch deathly gray skin wrought with cold
So many cuts, the bone, the blood, the laughter so bold
The man with his iron heart and precious gold
Of life, he so willfully bought and sold
So said the folktale told
For she was the one who schemed and conjoled
In the end, she was the one who grew old
Wrought-iron gates slammed shut with ageless creaks
The Earth, the inheritance, so bequeathed reads the Bible,
Hands held out, the hands of the meek, the downtrodden, the weak
With stunned faces, that shone traces, of shunned libel
For their God rested, on the seventh day of man’s week
For their faith lay bested, the faith so many still seek
She sought it too
All her days through
By God, by-the-way, by-and-by - that’s the \'lie!’