“hush”,
says the nothing

he, nothing
everyone, nothing

nothing is nothing, yet
everyone
and nothingness divides.

“I wait”
says the girl

girl two? Or girl four?

Hands may not divide

Those too many a head
to count

No braids, no crown of broken jewels…

but waiting feet.

Girl four, or girl five?

“Go,”
Says I,


And I, with my shoe
And glove bring back

Two tall tales

One with the rat, the rogue and the railing

The other with my fist that moves the sky

“no, stop”
says the nothing

but nothing makes nothing
with her fingertips of gold,

solid stone, and molted road?

“life?”
asks the girl

“no”
says I

“journey, journey”

the journeys that walk two lives,
or three? Or four?

Too many to count,
the nothing tells me –
no . . .

whispers in her blind-held
faith loving truth

“not I, not I”
she repeats back to me

so I, with my iron crown
and the letter that I never wrote

hold in two precious hands

one

small

wing

not found in the left
pocket of my mother’s jewelry box

but in the widening hollow of my
heart

“it does not fly”
nothing cries

“try, try”
says I

but she, with her
sandstone dress
and the monster that
lurks beneath her spindly hair

reaches out
and crushes the wing
in her spiderweb hands

“Not I,”
she repeats

“Not I”