The Lie

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!’