Premonition

[n_reed]

This path has grown over
With blue ivy holding night in its veins.
We walk through, tearing vines
at our ankles to the hammock,
the ropes gray and fraying.
The hooks have rusted
And take on the texture of bark.
Gnats trembling into one body,
You part them with your hand into chaos.

We were seven when I told you,
Given my name,
That I was immune to the prick
of holly leaves.
You reached under the hammock
And turned me over into the nest of thorns;
Brown hooks held me like bait.
I rose smiling,
Removed a leaf from my back,
Flung stomach-over the hammock
And pierced your arm.
You cried out,
Blood balled the size of a berry.

I recall this, seeing the holly
Almost bare behind the hammock.
We climb on; it stretches
To hold our new weight.
We say nothing.
Moon cylinders drop through branches.
I see how you have used yourself:
Arms lined with blue shadows
Crawling over thorned veins.
Bones rise through flesh.
Two feet like bruised pears dangle into light.
We lie hammock-swallowed
Sunken close to the ground.
You part your lips slightly to exhale smoke.
It spirals upward to blackness.