She Knows

The touch of silver, cold, uninvited marked a circle of blame on her glass skin. Her happiness is a song, regal in locked throats. Peace tries to heal hatred’s reign but cemeteries continue to grow, curving around thousand-year-old pines jeweled in amber tears. Hope warrants less and less in centuries of pain as we are taken on a chase, as we are taken in… Her open hands trace ideas of law across icy flesh—the dead tell no more tales, not even to her. Locked in the last keep, (for her safety, they tell her) she sings a song of unforgivable love and unlearned fidelity. Next time (she knows this, but won’t say it, because that would be wrong) the war may not end.