The Blood Is At Our Command
Night.
A circle of torches in the distance.
Bodies. Large dark silhouettes.
Gathered shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.
Witness: Two feather-covered faces.
A pair of metal-glazed chests.
The flash of weapons, sharp-edged glimmers.
Splitting moonlight.
Limbs squat, dive, tumble.
Building a hunger that attacks.
First, it branches beneath the skin.
Rumbles right past the belly.
To take root in your hips.
Need flares in your knees, but.
Your ankles are stone.
You are nothing but refusal.
A heap of dry bones.
An unsubtle yank under the armpits.
An impatient tug of wrists.
A pair of eyes, huge and glowing.
Terrifying and wise.
Each twinkle a poem, each blink a demand.
When we speak, you answer.
Your legs lose their silence.
You become a ring of movement.
A wingless thing taking flight.
The blood is at our command.
One rotation is an enchantment.
Two rotations are an incantation.
What is within is also without.
At the fling of your forearm.
Another’s hand whips through the air.
At the stretch of your shin.
Another’s calf curves in surrender.
Your whirling is a bombardment.
That overwhelms the night.
Six rotations and the warriors lose their grip.
Seven rotations and the people gain their grit.
Every swaying ribcage a multiplier.
Every soul deepens the summoning.
Muscles sing, spines twist.
Sweat baptizes until.
The night is awash with relief.
Briefly, for a few suspended moments.
We are empty.
A deep well of grief.
Released.