i dance, i dance
to my starry-eyed love song.
i dance, i dance
even in ash, we’ll sing along.

eyes and ears like cinder bricks,
their faces have known no hue.
and pretty, pure, wretched white flowers
vied for sun from the cracks in their skin.

“take root, child,” they whispered a lullaby
veiled in milky, murky convictions,
it’s a dead language the flowers sing,
their soles will batter all the ends of the earth.

undeserved, unfair, unending is their floral dance,
dust clung—desperate—to a serrated stem:
every swipe of the tender, silken dress
is a strike to their shaded, cavern cheeks.

we’ll dance, we’ll dance
to our teary-eyed love song.
we’ll dance, we’ll dance
to the song strung centuries long.