Swagazine Five

Cage of Arms, by Zeylan

The lights dim as the cinema begins.
 
She moves as a parade
of jasmine and winter breath
and I am the last dance of hornets losing stingers.
 
Lights, camera, action.
 
She offers up
a smile, an embrace
All her defenses and nervous mysteries.
 
I devour these gifts,
 
And suddenly I am trapped
within her cage of arms,
paralyzed, hungry.
 
The world becomes a teeming collection
of noises and intrusions,
invading our familiar coil.
 
Somewhere,
The sea level rises,
A streetlight flickers and goes out, followed by another.
 
I join in their obvious worship,
lost in a wilderness tamed by her bitter smile;
her damning embrace;
the fall of her gentle rain.
 
A turn of the head, wicked, satisfied,
she opens her cage and releases me
and disappears in a dizzying repose.
 
Jump cut. The camera follows her down the boulevard.
 
Sirens.
 
Footsteps grow quiet.
 
All that I am fades to black.

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"Cage Of Arms" Illustration by Brian Rhinehart.
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