Bestiary & Skin
The walls are not the building.
Imprisoned. The hydra crawls into the trickling shadow of masonry and huddles, waiting for darkness complete:
The end that ne'er will come. The release which prayers have failed to grant him. He lives and endures, as the walls endure. Does not need food or sleep.
His captors have patience. When he has arrived at his limit at last they will be satisfied.
Winter. His backbone fuses into a pillar of salt. The spirit, animal of water and earth, slithers away. It cannot survive in this place.
The walls are not the building.
They are all that remain.
They bury him deep.
Shrunken to bare bones, scales over his eyes, upturned soil and gravel coat his bloodless cheek in the darkness of to-be-forgotten.
His captors were patient but it was no contest; he has all the time in the world. In their meanness they offer him no shroud or coffin.
The shell of earth cracks when he finally breaches his cage.
Freedom is the air sweet upon his tongue. Lemon light, its silken touch.
Spring. Time of plenty, the granaries are full, pregnant females give birth to pink, suckling babes. Their lusty sweat and labour: laudanum bouquet of sensuous delight.
He'll feast. Eager teeth agleam.
No shortage of flies and pests this season.
6 October 2007