the blood tradition
whose flushed cheek is it that lies
within the heated crook of your arm?
whose eternal lost soul is it that dies
among the reeds, in this torrid state of alarm?
how lengthy is this penance
that we walk with blistered feet?
for all my love to lie within a sentence,
before i become the sacrificial meat
it is in this ritual that i dance,
if only for your pleasure, Sir -
a jousting champion with a fractured lance,
his young bride nestled deep in her cloak of fur
the banners wave as the swords clash,
hands are clutched and nails are bit -
in all this chaos our tempers grow rash,
igniting the firefight at the red heart of it
from a noose there hangs the remaining scraps
of a former man, clinging onto the rope -
the wind sways so upon the trunk that the heel bone taps,
a beacon, for the opposition, of brute hope
the hope that it is not their second son,
for the first stays put at high court,
who boasts of seasons and battles won -
their palpable pride permeating the fort
Copyright © jenna watson-teno | Year Posted 2026
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