mumbles, jumbles, into the night
my baby phoenix stumbles into its plight
a better life was merely imagined
but my dove, my dear, bitterly determined

huddled witnesses
there! in the square
a drove of fireflies, watching
her rebirth in fire, laid bare.

her tuckered tail, dead-centered --
shaking off crimson pearls of lunar lunacy,
henceforth, bleeding on her own time, her own tenancy.

her talons look at us.
we look at fiery lips that lash and scorch her.
never more before his penetrating gaze,
as her wings form a column of blaze.

she soars, she screams:
but to nothing but scorn --
the square-goers think she is just forlorn.  

my dove, my dear, for your ****** death --
I pray it greets not a dragon's breath.