“What do you get when you cross a law-man
with a pennyscaled viper?” Dim asked with a grin.
The human-faced pigeon looked back, glassy-eyed.
Dim ignored the dull look and began to reply.
“Sir, you see, you get nothing when those two are crossed,
for both nothing is gained and nothing is lost.”
She scratched at her arm, setting gold leaf to wind,
“both attend to their brass, and both strike in the end.”
Sallow cheeks went all taught as her friend blew a “coo.”
“Yes, I know,” Dim replied, “this means nothing to you.”
So she got to her feet, hollow limbs crunching, prone.
As her skin fell away, the blue light within shone.
Her beam defied sharply the pink of the sky,
though she drifted by faces, not a one cared to pry.
There were animals here, walking roads and straw-grass.
Like the pigeon, they wore faces, all slack-jawed to match.
Dim continued with riddles and questions and jokes.
She told them of pasts and deeds beyond reproach.
Not an animal judged, not a one was appalled,
and Dim pushed away “I know they can’t hear me at all.”
Days passed in the hamlet of pink sky and grass,
and Dim thought, “I have found my true home at last.
My days have been rough, but I feel this place
has been waiting for me to show my pretty face.”
And, of course, she ignored what, by now, had been claimed.
Her gold leaf covered buildings the sun set aflame.
She had little self left but her wit and her light,
and her certainty that she had always been right.
A law-man had caught her, penny scales took her bones.
She was left with her leaf and her spirit alone.
“Home-bound” was her sentence, and she’d bet her light
that this strange town was where she had lived all her life.