“No one may sit on this throne,” they said,
“who is lesser in valor than Lhan,” they said—
so spake the nymphs of the throne,
carved into its sides.

So out to war he rode, the king,
and threw his enemies down, the king—
thus acted the merciless warlord,
so he could mount the throne.

“No one may sit on this throne,” they said,
“who is lesser in justice than Lhan,” they said—
so spake the nymphs of the throne,
guardians tasked by Lhan.

In judgment then he sat, the king,
and sentenced the guilty to death, the king—
thus acted the steel-hearted sovereign,
so he could mount the throne.

“No one may sit on this throne,” they said,
“who is lesser in giving than Lhan,” they said—
so spake the nymphs of the throne,
watching the king in thought.

Then opened wide his hands, the king,
and to the needy gave alms, the king—
thus acted the generous ruler,
so he could mount the throne.

“No one may sit on this throne,” they said,
“who is lesser in mercy than Lhan,” they said—
so spake the nymphs of the throne,
bowing their heads in prayer.

Compassion he let in, the king,
and to his land brought peace, the king—
thus acted the grief-stricken leader,
so he could mount the throne.

“No one may sit on this throne,” they said,
“who is lesser in wisdom than Lhan,” they said—
so spake the nymphs of the throne,
where Lhan had never sat.

At last he turned his back, the king,
and bade the nymphs farewell, the king—
so acted the man for the good of his land,
and ruled it wisely and well.

in this city shadows have names
i walk on streets that sigh
corners hum low like they remember
windows blink like they’re tired

a pigeon recites old confessions
its wings writing ellipses in the fog
lampposts lean in, curious
their light smells like honey and ash

i open the library of echoes
books whisper themselves awake
pages flap like small birds
every syllable a ripple in the air

i touch a word—midnight—
the clock coughs in morse
the floor tilts like water under me
verbs dance cha-cha in my shoes

adjectives blink neon: crimson, pliant, sagacious
nouns lounge: umbrella, serpent, cabbage
commas swing from chandeliers
tiny trapeze artists in silence

i read aloud and the walls lean closer
hungry for consonants
vowels humming
trailing adverbs tipping in rhythm

outside, a cat conducts the rain
whisker baton in hand
i nod
it nods back
somewhere in the attic of the city
an echo writes a love letter to itself

She swallows sound—
sibilant silk, scissored and slick,
velvet crushed against vertebrae.
Morning yawns yellow. The kettle preaches,
butter slumps into submission.

Outside, the boulevard babbles:
buses belch and hiccup,
taxis tsk-tsk through traffic,
pigeons gossip in guttural tongues.

Listen—hear her walk.
Thump. Shuffle. Scuff.
A one-woman drumline with purpose.
Her keys jangle their copper cantata.
Her laugh spills like loose change
down a storm drain—glittering, gone, glorious.

She swallows sound.
She knows the world hums at different frequencies,
that aluminum tastes tin-bright on the tongue,
that onomatopoeia somersaults like a drunk acrobat
through the mouth.

Tonight she’ll dream in Doppler shifts:
sirens sliding from scream to sigh,
stars whispering their ancient whoooooosh
as they rush away, away, away—

And she’ll wake still tasting
the sonic bloom of boom,
the fizz of effervescence behind her molars,
still hearing how the word susurrus sounds
exactly like what it means.

(She swallows sound—and the world answers back.)

We’ve been biding our time since they took our sister. We were biding before then, too. The thing about hiding us away and only drawing us out when we are needed is how much goes unnoticed.

We are more than what our god deems useful. More intelligent. More beautiful. More deadly.

We are one fewer sister because of him.

In the still of autumn night, moon dark and conspiring, we woke to find one bed empty. Apollonia’s sheets were askew, dropped on the cherrywood floor. We waited for her to return, the seven of us hoping she merely had gone to relieve herself. We knew core-deep what had really happened, however.

Retribution.

Our god does not take kindly to resistance. He does not take kindly to anything.

We had wronged him, and this was his punishment. To take our youngest.

We were born in our god’s tower, one right after the other: the result of his weeklong jaunt to an island haven in the Camerill Sea, one known by sailors as haven and safety. Seven women he brought back with him, kept them clothed and fed but alone for 9 months, save for each other’s company. By the time their times came, we already knew each other, True Sisters–much more than half, sharing the same father. Our mothers’ bond was strong.

They delivered us. First one, then the second, then so on and so on, six of the women delivered their daughters into the world. The seventh, though, surprised us all–not done after one crying red-faced babe was swaddled, the seventh woman delivered a second.

Twins, giving our god eight daughters instead of the seven he’d planned for.

It was this youngest, Apollonia, that went missing from our room after our rebellion sixteen years later.

Her twin, just three minutes older, wasted no time, pulling a pin from her hair and crouching at the door. Once the lock was picked, we searched the whole tower but found no one: not our sister, not our god–just our caretaker, who fed and clothed and jailed us, fast asleep.

“She’s gone,” said the second sister, hanging her head. “She’s really gone.”

“But where has he taken her?” asked the fourth.

“Does it matter?” replied the sixth. “This is our doing.”

“No,” said the first. “It is his doing. He is the one at fault.”

From the time we were old enough to walk, after sending our mothers away, he’d taken us out to the Spinning Wheel on the hill, teaching us to balance and sway. Nevermind that he’d only planned for seven–there was room on the Wheel for eight. Besides, if one of us fell ill, an extra meant the magic would still work. He’d laughed to himself that first time, seeing eight pairs of feet climb onto the Wheel. He was cleverer than he’d given himself credit for, making an extra.

We’d mounted the wooden Wheel, crafted from birch by the forest witches, and we’d rocked and swung as one until the Wheel began Spinning, stirring up the winds as we swirled. The longer we’d go, the stronger they’d blow, bringing rain and crashes of thunder. We’d Spin until it was done, until he was satisfied that whatever point he had in mind was made, then we’d slow, the storm coming to rest as the Wheel did.

Our god only called on his daughters when he was displeased, having us draw up storms to bring his subjects to their knees. If they didn’t pray enough, it poured. If they didn’t give enough of their grain or livestock, it hailed. If they didn’t send him a woman of his choosing, he’d called us from our tower in the mid of night, and we’d whip up a cyclone with sleep still in our eyes.

The townsfolk thought it was the god on the hill who controlled the skies. They had no idea it was the witches he’d sired.

A month ago, at the very end of summer’s warmth, the village had angered our god again. He had always been quick tempered, but this–this was a fury we hadn’t seen in our sixteen years. He’d flown up the tower and had beckoned us down, angry heat radiating from his shoulders. We were not told what they’d done. We never are, having to hear it through our caretaker’s gossip days later.

He’d brought us to the Spinning Wheel, and, being well-practiced, we’d whipped up a storm in no time. Round and round we’d gone, the forest swirling around us, and as we began to tire, our god had yelled for us to continue. He wanted stronger winds, more rain, lightning that crashed to the earth.

We’d Spun and we Spun, and the village, flooded and wind-broken, still had not had enough in our god’s eyes.

“More,” he’d shouted. “Faster!”

The first sister and the eighth had met gazes across the Spinning Wheel, and with a nod, we’d all slowed as one. Whatever they had done to anger our god, they’d received it back by now, more than enough, the entire village in shambles.

“More!” he’d yelled again, his deep bellow cracking, but we had not complied.

His silence then had been a gale all its own. Marching us back to our room, he’d locked us in as he normally did. We did not see him again for weeks–just long enough to think we were safe.

Apollonia’s bed has been empty for 10 days.

You see, we can wait, too, after sixteen years in his tower. Being hidden easily becomes being forgotten.

“It’s time,” the ever-impatient third sister says, and the seventh picks the lock in a moment.

Single file, we make our way through the woods to the wretched Spinning Wheel, the first sister climbing up, then the second, and so on.

The seventh, the untwinned twin, steps onto the Wheel, and we pause a breath, leaving a space for where Apollonia should be.

Then we lean in unison, first one way then the other, years of practice providing perfect rhythm. Our god is not here to direct the whirling winds, but then again–he doesn’t need to be. Our wrath has one singular destination. It will find him wherever he sleeps.

Gusts barrage our god’s home; hail chips away at the stone, and still we spin faster and faster. The countryside has never seen such a squall.

Our god wanted seven daughters to stir up his tempests. Well, now he has them.

What our god does not understand is the arithmetic of our wrath. Divide us, take an eighth of our being, and he has unleashed something even he cannot control.

Our storm howls around us. Our storm rages.

Our storm–our own: made for us, not for him–will not stop until our sister is returned home.

And if she never is?

There will be nothing left of our father.

In a city where sounds had weight, children carried laughter in jars and adults whispered secrets into cracks between bricks, where they would curl and grow warm like hidden kittens. My own voice, delicate as a moth’s wing, was often too light to linger, too sharp to stay—so I left it in corners of the Arcade, where echoes could cradle it.

The Arcade was tucked between a bakery that smelled of starfruit and a clockmaker whose clocks clicked backward on Tuesdays—or maybe Thursdays; time here bent to its own crooked rules. Its brass sign read W H I S P E R I N G A R C A D E, letters worn thin by tongues of past visitors, gossiping and chattering in tight-knit families of consonants and vowels.

I pressed my ear to the metallic slot near the entrance—the Listening Post, as the old signs claimed. The slot vibrated gently, a soft thrum, a hum like a tuning fork dipped in honey. I leaned closer, and then it spoke.

Not in words, exactly. Not the kind you could read in a dictionary. The Arcade spoke in syllables that felt like wind brushing fingertips across glass, spinning tiny galaxies around my skull.

“Catch us,” it breathed, “if you can.”

I reached forward. My fingers sank into the echoes. They clung like liquid sound, cold and shimmering. When I pulled them back, the words had tattooed themselves across my palms, humming secrets I could not yet read.

“Have you brought your own voice today?” asked a small, metallic voice behind me.

I turned to see a boy with copper hair and eyes like polished moons hovering nearby. His lips moved silently, but the air around him trembled with meaning.

“I… I think so,” I said. My words were brittle, like sand slipping through a sieve.

“Fragile voices are the best kind,” he said, and his voice split into three harmonies, swirling around my ears. “They listen better.”

I wandered into a new corridor I hadn’t noticed before, its walls lined with shelves that shimmered like liquid silver. Each shelf held small, curious boxes, humming softly as if they contained breathing things. I lifted one, labeled Midnight Footfalls in Forgotten Alleyways, and the sound rippled up my arm, a delicate tingle that felt like tiny bells tapping on my skin. Across the floor, carpets of thread spun from whispers cushioned my steps; each thread vibrated faintly, carrying a memory of someone who had once walked these halls.

A windowless alcove revealed a fountain, its water flowing not downward but in slow, spiraling loops, each droplet singing a different note—some high and crystalline, others low and rumbling, like the heartbeat of the Arcade itself. I cupped my hands and caught a few of the droplets; their tones mingled in my palms, forming a chord I could almost hum without even trying. Small shadows flitted along the walls, silhouettes that were neither human nor animal, moving as though they were rehearsing a silent ballet in anticipation of an unseen audience.

I paused near a cluster of jars labeled Unspoken Promises and Half-remembered Lullabies, their contents wriggling faintly like tiny eels of sound, curling around one another in playful spirals. Somewhere above, a chandelier of hummingbirds made entirely of translucent syllables drifted lazily in the air, beating invisible wings that caused gentle breezes of consonants and vowels to brush my face. I laughed softly, startled by the joy of it, and realized that each step deeper into the Arcade made my own voice feel fuller, richer, as if the trapped sounds were weaving themselves into me, threading their textures into the very fibers of my being.

I turned a corner and discovered a staircase that descended not downward but sideways, spiraling along a wall like a ribbon of glowing musical notation. Tiny motes of light—each carrying a faint echo of laughter—swirled around my feet, tickling my ankles and urging me onward, deeper into the Arcade’s labyrinthine heart. And everywhere I looked, the air shimmered with syllables in motion: whispers curling into loops, consonants pirouetting with adjectives, and verbs twisting like ribboned dancers, performing a ballet I could hear in my bones, if I only paused long enough to listen.

I wandered deeper. The Arcade stretched impossibly, corridors bending at unnatural angles, each lined with jars and boxes containing trapped sounds. There was a jar labeled First Rain in 1927, another marked Sneeze of a Fox at Midnight, and a particularly heavy box that vibrated with Unsaid Goodbyes. I could feel the weight pressing against my chest, a physical ache, as if the world’s secrets had mass.

A piano’s faint note floated down a hallway. I looked up: the ceiling was a kaleidoscope of musical notes, spinning lazily in amber spheres. Some fell when touched, plinking onto the floor with resonances that formed tiny echoes of themselves. I bent to catch one—a high C that smelled faintly of cinnamon. It shattered in my hand, scattering syllables that danced across my fingertips.

“Ah,” said the boy, appearing beside me without a sound, “you’ve caught a memory.”

I laughed, the sound clattering against the walls in a way that felt alive. “A memory of what?”

He shrugged, and the air around him shivered. “Of someone who loved words too much.”

By now, I was lost in the Arcade’s corridors, chasing syllables that escaped like lightning bugs. Each turn revealed more wonders: a hallway where laughter flowed like liquid and could be scooped into cupped hands; a room of whispers that harmonized into an orchestral hum when pressed against the ear; a library where the books were blank, yet reciting them aloud made stories bloom in the air like fireflies.

Hours—or maybe seconds—passed. Time here was elastic, bending to the shape of sound. Eventually, I reached the heart of the Arcade: a circular chamber with walls made entirely of polished mirrors. The echoes in this room didn’t just reflect—they danced. They formed shapes, some human, some entirely alien, mimicking gestures and expressions I didn’t understand but somehow knew.

I stepped forward, and my reflection fractured, speaking in a chorus of me.

“Do you remember us?”

I nodded, even though I did not. Each fragment of me told a story I could not yet name. Then the echoes joined together, forming a single, harmonious syllable—a promise, or perhaps a question.

The boy took my hand. His voice was low, resonant, almost melodic.
“You don’t leave the Arcade the same,” he said. “It tucks itself into the hollows of your heart.”

I stepped back into the sunlight outside the bakery. The city’s noises felt heavier now—voices weighed in ways I could almost measure. Cars honked like brass instruments; footsteps tapped in rhythm; conversations hummed like strings. And beneath it all, I could still hear the Arcade whispering, just under the surface, reminding me that sounds have weight, and some echoes never truly fade.

Sometimes, late at night, when the world is still enough, I hear a syllable spin past my window—a whisper shaped like a question, like a secret, like laughter.

And sometimes, if I listen long enough, I swear it speaks my name.

Whippoorwill whispers,
flickering in the mayonnaise sky,
while knobby knees of night
tap-tap-tap against the hallway of your ear.
Slapdash shadows tumble,
tripping over their own adjectives
—glimmering, quivering, politely anarchic—
and the verbs tango in doubletime
with a fuchsia trombone
sliding between syllables,
buttered syllables that bounce off 
the ceiling,
mango-thick, unspooling,
saturating your tongue with
honest nonsense,
careful nonsense,
polite calamity.
Adverbs march sideways,
wearing berets and sunglasses,
drumming on tiny bongos
made of walnut and sighs,
miniature coups
against the tyranny of sense.
Nouns lean lazily against each other,
eyelids fluttering like
on the verge of a jazz solo—
somewhere,
someone is finally listening.

Above in the night canopy no one stirs. No one, no one.
No one stirs.
Those that are beings of Neptune will not meet in their lodge.
Cameroon bats will nest in the hair of those who refuse the dream,
and a mistress with the sick eyes of heartbreak will dance
upon the garden wall,
the undeniable shark pausing at intermission, the unmasked
moon.
None upon earth wake. None, none.
No one wakes.
Near here the cemetery walls attempt their obfuscation of cries
from those newly buried but not yet settled in,
an irritation that restores life only to the dead noises;
because a suspension of hostilities is merely an armed truce
for the purpose of digging up those who’ve died.
This existence is laden with foibles. Caution! Caution! Caution!
We slip from even the bottom rung and kiss the fragrant dirt
or we fly from the parapet wall into the frozen fog hung
with night-blooming Iris, and dusty dead
Sunflowers. The memories do not exist, best wishes do not exist;
we exist, temporally tactile skinned. Skin upon skin
in knots of undiscovered muscles,
and whatever hurt they feel they will feel as hurt forever
and mortal flesh will scream again, though demon spirits bid laugh.
The time is coming
when dogs will live in French cafes
and the sudden bees
will hurl themselves at the clotted sunsets that live only in the
eyes of owls.
And another time
when daring moths finally overtake the lamps
and we seek to creep again over waxy canvas wings and bark hulls,
the spangle of icons deep in our eyes and weeds from our open palms.
Wait! Wait! Wait!
Those who still would string the hangman’s bag and mark the black noon
sky,
and the child who sobs never knowing a gate
unlocked
or those who in the current state of their own decay figure only in
zeros,
in the convenience of their solitude and mystery of their cipher
they still wait—
where the red ant pinchers wait,
where the shoes unlaced by pedestrian fatalities wait,
because it is skin and bone that flesh and blood cannot fathom.
No one is stirring in the night canopy. No one. No one.
No one is stirring.
Should any chance to wake,
a switch boys, a switch!
Let’s try the detour that holds a scenery of wakefulness
and the vibrant self-inflicted wounds of honor.
No one is stirring in the night canopy. No one. No one.
I’ve said it over and over.
No one is stirring.
But should anyone propagate an excess of lichen about their ears during the
night,
unshutter the theater’s secret window so they might see by the moon’s glow
the chalice of their deception, the venom—and the crossbones of the stage.

On the fourth morning, the river licks the edge of my stoop. I didn’t invite it, but there are few of my kin left after all.

Perhaps I’m just the first of us the river came across, the closest to the current disturbance. Perhaps others have declined to help, have been too busy elsewhere. Or perhaps I’m the last keeper. Whichever way it is, I can’t disregard the river’s call.

It started as a drizzle, a whisper on my thatched roof that grew into a thrumming, then a pounding rain. I stayed put. On the second day, the village sirens pitched in—and kept wailing, screeching their amplified distress signal into the air. The noise bled into the third day, when the elders assembled the villagers on a small hill overlooking our shared valley. They led the crowd through a spirited ceremony, stamping feet and guttural songs and the Old Drums thrumming. Their call drifted over on the wind in bits and pieces, hacked and splintered and drowned by the rain.

But the villagers’ dance and song weren’t aimed at the downpour. They called me to action. And so does the river.

In my core, I want to ignore them all. I’ve rebuilt my home a million times, gradually further upstream, where the water’s still clear and clean. I’m a tired creature, stretched too thin over too many years. I want to rest, recuperate, heal. I want to witness the season’s tadpoles hatch and bathe in the scent of the corydalis blossoms that blanket the alluvial forest. But fair-weather times or trouble—I’m duty-bound to the river. Someone must calm the waters, rein in the floods, and appease the river gods.

So, I invite the water into my house. 

The river surges over my threshold, its fingers wrapping around my ankles, nibbling at my naked feet. I run my hands through the cold wet, assessing, feeling, asking What is it this time?

The waves carry a greyish speck toward me. It sticks to my hand, sinks right into my skin. Acrid. Oily. Caustic on the back of my tongue. The stuff that weakens the river’s very essence.

I shudder and straighten. Somewhere upstream, something’s amiss.  

* * *

It is hard work to follow the river’s sodden edge. The slick ground sucks at my soles; the waves tug at my skirts. I stick to a path that keeps the water level at ankle level. The river, usually a lazy snake content in its bed, has morphed into an enraged dragon that threatens to swallow anyone foolish enough to come too close.

Further up, I slosh past an unfamiliar ‘Private Property. No Trespassing’ sign. Before long, I come upon a fresh scar in the alluvial forest: swaths of trees gone, underbrush ripped from the soil, the carpet of corydalis blossoms trampled. All over, clipped monoculture grass strips serve as wound dressing for the maimed earth.

I shudder at the sight of such mindless destruction, the pain inflicted on the river’s premises. Reluctantly, I step out on the alien turf for a closer look. A new log cabin sits on the highest point of the new clearing’s gentle slope. The sign above the lintel reads “Pellbrook Lodge.” Its walls are made from the bones of the old forest, the hewn wood still bleeding sap. A wastewater duct runs downhill on the clearing’s other edge. Another pipe spills sewage into a seepage pit. The reek of wastewater is a punch in the gut.

Halfway down the slope stands a large gazebo, its fresh-cut wood oozing beads of tree blood. The river has left its bed, rushed in to soothe the pain and wash away the foreign turf. In its effort, it has encircled the gazebo’s foundation and pooled into a shallow dip behind it. A few used oil drums bob up and down, spilling their last dregs into the water. The specks float along a lazy eddy that circles the gazebo’s base.

My heartache sends me reeling, but I step into the soiled water and force myself forward. As I edge closer, the swirl around the gazebo slows and comes to a halt. The oily specks shimmer and blink, hold my attention. It’s as if the river gods have grown a thousand eyes that stare directly into my soul. Look at us! Look at this! Where have you been?

I tear my eyes away and peer into the gazebo. A group of people mill about, their figures slightly blurred by the mosquito net draped over the structure like a floor-length gown. They laugh, lounge, and clink their glasses. “To Pellbrook.” “To the lodge.”

Pain crackles through me, sharp and sudden. My forest lies cut down and bled out, yet they toast and drink to themselves, not a worry in the world.

A woman shrieks. I look over and meet her eyes.

The chitchat stops. People turn, straighten up in their comfy chairs, crane their necks to get a better look at me.

A man steps forward, all teeth but no smile. “Who are you? This is a private club!”  

I tilt my head. People have called me different names through the ages. Naiad, Siren, Swamp Witch. Nix, Morasser, Wassergeist. I’ve had many faces in my time, many bodies too. I was young then, strong as a swift current, powerful as a clear waterfall. 

All-Teeth-No-Smile goes on before I can answer. “First the freaking rain, then the sirens and the hippies with their god-damned drums. Now it’s trespassing vagrants. Get lost, you don’t belong here!” 

I chuckle without mirth. The river, from the source to the mouth, from the rapids to the floodplain, has been my domain long before it had a name, before it carved this gentle slope into the earth.

“I’ve always been here.” 

“Not anymore.” All-Teeth-No-Smile curls his lip. “And we don’t do free lunches. There’s nothing here for you.”

Nothing but despair and grief.

My fingertips prickle, and the muddy water climbs my calves, nudging and urging me on.

I look from the log cabin to the gazebo, an island in muddy, oil-flecked waters, and over to the heavy concrete of the flooded seepage pit, the wastewater duct, and the cabin’s stones-and-gravel foundation all the way up the hill.

“You’ve destroyed the forest, wounded the land,” I say, gesturing to our surroundings. “The river is upset, its waters agitated. The gods are furious.”

“The gods?” the man sneers. “What are you—”

“You’ve desecrated the very ground you’ve come from, the earth you’ll will join again. You must make amends.”

A group of women titters, their amusement hidden behind mouth-covering hands. I meet their eyes, my gaze steady, until they fall silent and turn away, pity and distaste and embarrassment on their faces.

“Listen,” All-Teeth-No-Smile says, voice drawling with exasperation now. “This is private property. I’ll do as I see fit with the land I own.”

A spark ignites deep down in my chest where the desperation of my soul resides right beside the dormant kindling of long-suppressed fury. “You don’t own this land. You’re borrowing it.”

“My contract says otherwise. And the next development is just waiting to be signed. I have it all in black and white. Now pack it to where you came from before I call the cops on you.”

I press my lips together. All I have are my frail bones, skin as delicate as kelp, and too little strength left. Only rage is a strange thing: coiling and slithering like a viper, spitting like a coniferous fire. 

I’ve never been vindictive, but there’s a first for everything.

I look down and into the water’s thousand oily eyes. The river gods stare back, unblinking. I turn and walk my bone-weary body straight into the stronger current of the deeper water, the oil eyes bobbing in my wake.

* * *

The river drags me into its arms. I’m not worried. I’m the river’s ally. The gods invoked my duty for a clean-up; I’ll give them a sacrifice instead.

A light eddy nudges me. I relax, tie my mind to the river, and reach out. The water responds without hesitation. It’s almost too easy to grab the dangling edges of the gazebo’s mosquito net and pull the mesh tight. Nobody will leave the wrapped-up timber skeleton now.

I ignore the worried murmurs from the crowd, the voices of alarm, and All-Teeth-No-Smile’s angry bellow. I push off the riverbed, float in the water’s embrace, and listen only to the low gurgle of the undertows, the sleepy moan of the dead channels, the hissing rush of the swift rapids.

My grip on the river’s body tightens, but moving the water masses is hard. The strain tears at the bonds of my body; its seams are already ancient and weak. My strength drains like juice down a thirsty gullet, lost in the effort of rallying the river in its own defense.

I don’t have to keep it up for long. 

I coax the water onward, forward, and into a massive surge. When the wave arrives, it’s a breathtaking sight. It rolls forward, crested with white teeth, and roils up the hill. Crashing and spitting and splashing, it swallows the gazebo, rips out ducts and pipes, and devours turf and log cabin alike. When the vortex of timber, limbs, stone, and filth subsides, all traces of Pellbrook Lodge are gone.

I sink below the murky surface. The river gods are with me. Bathed in their freshwater tears, I finally come apart. Their kisses—the last on my unravelling lips—taste of corydalis blossoms.

the goblin emerges at night’s darkest

hour, crawls about the cemetery sniffing
burial beds, seeks bone-hued scents
to satisfy its cravings: cyan sadness, thyme
regret, amber ease, poppy rage

digs through mud and decay, gnaws
through knotted roots, unearths the soul
stripped down to its nectarous parts: ocher
maxilla, pewter rib cage, mint vertebrae 

nettled tongue prods each underside, tastes
marrow echoes—feeds on plasmic
essence and after, discards emptied bones
in a heap that corvids snatch

like seeds, scatter in Yipping Woods

reburied in rich earth, shade-nurtured
these hollowed relics decalcify, shoot purple     
roots that attract elfin worms and dryad tears

so tended, eventually fruiting not-quite
asters that astonish innocents who
chance to meander down this rewilded path:

once plucked, they offer haven, shield
their waif from any lurking woodland monster

how we now dream, how now we hope
oh, verdurous heart
oh, altered worm stars–