bring what ails you

to a folk curandera

high in the Andes

where thin air dizzies

the spirit, a black

guinea pig, a fur ball,

and she'll rub it

against the aching

body and right

at the epicenter

of pain, the animal

squeals when it finds

the source of the disease,

then it dies, gives up

for the sake

of this healing.

Preamble:

love has folded His sheets of music,

time assembles to distune our talking drums,

songs seal themselves in bunkers of silence,

daylight rushes her still-wet laundry in.

Prophecy:

scarecrows beat fear-full wings in the sky's vast

tombs,

birds freeze into poles of torment, riotously hued,

it's going to rain; it's going to pour,

the clouds whisper it, through kola-blackened teeth

Visions:

in years to come time will

tell it; unfold bunkers of teeth -

grinning teeth, chipped teeth, set in

a silent, still convoy of skinned skulls

Questions:

a canvas citizened by victims,

a canvas mounted on poles of silence

a canvas painted in pencils of (heated) lead

- did the Painter Realise his Vision?

Aftermath:

bunkers of silence drum to empty sheets of music

birds rain, lifeless, like kola-blackened teeth

grinning teeth, once hued, smile wet-laundry smiles

songs assemble, file into vast tombs with skinned

souls.