The Hanging Head

Rows of beggars crouched, leaning against
each other's shoulders, blind elders with gaunt
heads whispering and weeping
on the streets. I turn toward
the red gates of the churchyard,

then step in.

Steps wet and cold from dew. Walls crest into
scrollwork, age-crusted and lacquered red,
flakes from the damp. Feet
treading down the maroon 
trails toward the threshold.

On the altar sits a gaunt blind head, hung by a rope
knotted in his hair, blood from his nose trailing
down to lacquer
his lips for the prophecy
they begin to speak.

"Your neighbor Sarah is pregnant out of wedlock.
Her husband is sleeping with her brother; their wives
will know by twilight." Lips now
rusted maroon and quiet, no vision
spoken beyond today's gossip.

I climb the damp stairs

into the twilight that casts blind beggars hitching 
for a coin. My feet tread the trail  of maroon that rusts 
the scrollworked walls,
and the once-red gates 
of the churchyard.

A beggar whispers: "Did you hear? Sarah is pregnant
out of wedlock, and her husband likes to take it from her brother."
Voice drowned by the mass
of mouths smacking damp lips—
lacquering them with spit for gossip.

Beggars, merchants, and children prophesying
the day's gossip in the same marketplace,
built upon the ruins of the fire the head
once foretold, that left only this church
standing: the remains of a world that once saw.