Poetry: The Dragonfly

The Dragonfly

The dragonfly, the sky’s morning grace

Hovers blue, aflame over the lake.

Where faery queenes with crowns of laurel

cradle infants teething broken coral.

While the little girl, whose name was Sin

Wears coloured ribbons in her hair.

She nestles in his deep despair

And paints ‘Death’ on the mantelpiece.

The coal that was her building blocks

she dropped in red opulence,

Where there find comfort in embers’s blankets

As purple flames turn to virulence.

The dismantl’d sun burned upwards from hell,

The sky weeped with the tolling bell

For his fallen lover with God’s bright hymn,

now smiled through dark fire’s rim.

And in gasping for his fallen life –

He Dropped his wings.

Stained glass shattered into glaucous water.

The funeral march ; the Devil’s porter.

But yet,

Candles fell in his place,

And gossamer shrouds of broken lace.

The unholy water smirked and unfurled

Pestilence that doused the world.

Oh peace, peace, peaceful slaughter!-–

Alone on the bank I watched it cleave,

As ocular victor I gently grieve

The shrouded day of Heav’nly test

While he cried for his fallen conquest.

And on the cotton of the thistle leaves

I gently lay my head to rest.

•• Sophie Boehler ••