Kino-Eyes, part III

Kino-Eyes, part II

Kino-Eyes, part I

Canto IV
Under the delineated dark stars,
she sang softly to herself. You could
see the way she thought, the burden of it
on her ribcage, the quiet weight of it on
her lungs. Her breathing came shallow.
You could see the way she thought, and yet
the thoughts were hidden. She laid her careful body
on the dark tangle of grass like a forest in a fairy-tale,
and she looked up at the black sky as deep as time and space
and the stars, and you could not read her mind.

Canto X
But the I-beams
but the crack of steel on the
bones of arms,
but what are you
to make of your own lack of
belief?
But under the cracked shelter
there is a crying among the ranks of the women
and a hollow feeling in the chests of the men.
Every limb will be snapped,
Every vein bled dry,
but what of
your own lack of belief?

Canto IV
Softly, ungregarious,
she laid her head on his shoulder.
It was not what she wished for, his shoulder,
and for many days she had kept to herself.
Perhaps he was the answer to those quiet questions
she had not asked. After all, he did fit against her
very well, and if she could sleep there,
perhaps she could forget the he who had
come before, and how her head had dragged
over the spikes of his shoulder.
Softly she let him lead her and wound her for now.

Canto X
If the sun were less pitiless,
If the moon less bloodred
If the earth less hard and cracked
If the sea less swallowing and hateful
Or if the teeth of the animals were not so bared
Or if the arms of the people were not so laden with gunmetal lashes,
Then I were not.