Poem - To My Breast, Children by Ian Donnell Arbuckle

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Ian Donnell Arbuckle

Short Stories

- Hush, Now

Poems

- To My Breast, Children

To My Breast, Children
by Ian Donnell Arbuckle

Perched upon a tusk of ivory,
Lazar let his people die.

One dusk leg curled up to his eyes
On an invisible horizon;

A raven named entirely in tongues
No man may taste
Broke its wing in the king's hand,
Broke its beak trying to speak,

Trying to wake in dark Lazar the fear
of burnt fields. Arizona's leaf

And green, hard won and
forgotten. The bird clawed through
Skin to reach the sun and was eaten.

Cattle suffocated on their tongues.
Peasants spoke in gravel tones.
Quicksand ate the bones.

Silence stole all moisture
From the eyes and mouth of god.

God laughed in stuttered thunder.
The king of sackcloth, lord of ashes,
Burnt himself
Before he'd risk a speech of comfort.

Comfort is a bird; it flutters
In your stomach, like love.

Perched upon a horn of ivory,
Lazar let his people die.

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Copyright © 2002 Ian Donnell Arbuckle, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines