materializing the matron

While we go, dictating our disasters
onto the next limp leaf,
time lapses, lingers still
sounding off seconds in the announcement
of our barren plea.

Though we have fallen first; first
amongst those who cradle themselves
as common-place causalities,
we have heard of our predecessors
occupying gravel beds of rouge
and ruin –

tumultuous and thorned.

Sweet Mother Superior, you rise to breathe
flesh onto the bones, fur onto the buds
that blossom our cocoon
of silken, silenced code.

You devour the roots
of our empty-nested promise,
leaching a prescribed purpose
from the straitened vein.

While we fall, feathering mulched memoirs
onto the next fevered consort,
time beats, trembles still
signaling a force in the renouncement
of our polluted pace.

Never have we cowered first; truly last
to give away our tales to the tawdry.
We fray the vine binding our legs,
our mind, our pride –

as ripened women, roaring
with, what you call,
this most rotten rebellion.

Wait as the swell matures.
Shaded still, and shaping.