Dedicated to one of the dearest, most wonderful people I know and one I am blessed to call friend. You know who you are.

Derided, undefended and desperate she speaks

from silent depths where wonder stopped long ago,

replaced by a dry and lonely wind, parched and shrill.

Here she sees her own ghost asking questions

with answers long forgotten.

Now? Should? What if? Why? When?

Courtiers, rapiers, cads and posers

all seek her hand, her gentle touch

of light ascending, moon arising, darkness waning

but offer nothing in return but the cold assurance

of a promiseless land, a garden of stone, a song without notes.

But dawn brings only a nighttime warmth

to her daytime soul, her wounds heedless of their sources.

And on the cold and brittle staircase of their empty desolation

she floats and twirls, rising above her cistern of boggy solace

to the phoenix above, having paved her way

with the ashes of her heart’s demise.

And she meets herself again, as if for the first time,

on the way back up.