An Endtroduction

Elaeri and Siôn

"Enough of that.
Stand up straight!
What nonsense!"
the woman shouts;
she never doubts
the boy's capacity
for audacity
in the empty world.

No eyes to glare,
no soul to scare
or stare
and care
for what lies here,
alone in fear,
cautiously sliding
and overriding
back to the bleak.

Elaeri, her name
simple, the same
as those who crept
with limbs that leapt
shadow to shade,
hilt to blood blade,
consideration,
annihilation,
nothing changes now.

Siôn, her child,
dark-eyed and wild,
so frightened,
unenlightened -
raised so jaded,
a boyhood faded.
His words barbed,
blackly garbed,
like his mother.

Curly black hair,
they match and share
and another trait -
the age-old hate,
columns and rows,
restriction knows
and it thrives:
reality's lives.
He is hers alone.

"The train is leaving,
we can't be late.
It's time to go,"
Elaeri declares.
Her voice ensnares
and the platform
slicked in the storm
gives way to travel.