Charlotte’s Veil

Written years ago.
Still… Timely.

Family tree seed has grown this tale,

of a long lost relative who served in the civil war

On the side of the union.

He was captured and captive 12 months at Andersonville,

and survived to write of the horrors.

That publication is allegedly in the Library of Congress,

though more so the understanding of trauma in her blood.

Where are those statues?

Of the animus of torture,

Our pride forged prison of tongues and teeth;

Shackled jaw, skin stretched thin,

and waxy in the winnowing.

No effigy to the victors, nor oppressed.

The sum of pain pressed pages,

Folded shut, perhaps dog eared

hounds of whore, or hell, coyote ugly;

The passage of word to chapters and year,

Muted volumes too difficult to hear near clamor,

And we have forgotten how to read

Anything but the vitriol of color blind red.

I imagine how much the little earth

will flood or tremble unremembered,

then buried and asleep again

to dream a hundred years,

another century of hungry snore,

death rattles for the babes.

A wail or gnash,

A bang or whimper.

A boil or simmer.

Escape and evade.

Playing connect the dots with yellow,

gray, and red slaughter spots on the windshield.

Spelling the words to murder songs.

Hims. Unsung.

The rubbery flesh of carcass tires blown by the roadside,

Wet wings worn heavy on the grill with butterfly screams.

Webs glisten delicately to balance bits of chimera.

We are all the monsters in these shallow points of light,

the musical constancy of bent metronome and rhythmic rain speak,

because the walls can no longer breathe

Silently.

(Ayla Brynk, Allusions Anthology 8–23–17)