​The Crane Wife by Allister Nelson

They said I should have loved a crane wife, her bleeding
out in snow, onto ivory ice, I would give her my cloak and
she would be the female Christ, her blood stain my kimono,
and as I carried her home to rice paper walls, on bent back,
she would sing the sister stars down, and those souls departed
would flock around me, and I would know something of the afterlife,
offering up my pain and beauty to death, and as her wings married
my mind and marred my pain stains into something quixotic, I would
quicken, and Hell would have no place in my palace, and I would make
a thousand like her, all for one wish of peace, after Hiroshima bombed
me quite starstruck and desolate, and the grave of the fireflies wept.

They say I should have loved a crane wife instead.
But I became the bank of winter she drowned in, you see.
And I would never steal feathers or clip the wings off a bird.

We let our greatest potential go, and in that, grow.

Love is not the answer. The answer is a frozen rose.

Hope is not my delight. No, it is sacrifice.

And as the crane flies free, I am left flying kites,
looking up at the clouds, and dreaming of redemption
found at bitter beak and angel lips, and a thousand
other

impossible

things.


Allister Nelson is a poet and author whose work has appeared in Apex Magazine, The Showbear Family Circus, Eternal Haunted Summer, SENTIDOS: Revistas Amazonicas, Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder, FunDead Publications Gothic Anthology, and many other venues. Her most recent publication, "The Tobias Problem," was just nominated for a Pushcart Prize at Freedom Fiction.