The gate buckled like a lark's wing.

Thin, silver wires in a fray of humming

stitched the green hills together

with a thread pulled from its own tongue.

A bullet of hot ink ruptures through my boot,

each step a gun show, a black flood, and

the river leaned sideways to listen,

to spill secrets from its molten spout.

A thundercloud, my mother, she

wheeled a barrow of tiny clinks,

each one a flash to wake the drowned.

"Help," I whispered

and the moon laughed from behind her,

a watcher.

The grass smoked in a quiet frizzle

and floodlights swung from quick beaks

on a path into the ribs of the horizon

abandoned by sunlight and her warmth

My mother told me once, "Never trust a locked door,"

but there were only locked mouths here,

gnashing out songs no one could hear.