Monsters' Lament
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Jenny Greenteeth sighs brackish bubbles, rippling the algae nimbus of her hair. She's leaner than in days when twiggy fingers more often snatched at flailing limbs, when arms would clasp the wriggling strays until they slept. Now her pond-bed gasps with Koi, and all she cradles is an empty swell of rains. Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones scratches cracked claws down his scabby ribs; gates have sprouted metal teeth, and yards are stalked at night by crop-eared beasts with jaws that put his own to shame. Flourescent lighting makes his nose bleed, whores and babies alike preserved behind its glaring rails. Boogey Man wibbles his fingers through duckweed, murmurs sympathy: parents now tell sugared fictions in which Darkness ever fails against the Light, the hope their children never know a killer's smile or alley-trap, the snap of toddlers breaking in their hands. The moon pales, sulks behind clouds. Jenny sinks below pond-scum. Boogey fishes brittle treats from his pocket for the restless Bones. Perhaps tonight they'll catch an ankle, wrack a fugue-dream, resurrect the notion of fear itself as prophylactic, the comfort of knowing something is still out there, looming in the dark. by Salli Shepherd |