a thousand years

I am the daughter of the Emperor
in the year of the sun, ground with rocks
and salt as cured meat,
I wait, before his people as a belated beacon
   a hot plate heart.
my arms are bare and flightless
prescribed with runes of ancient fires.
known for my tea and marmalade hair
that caught the men like flies, even though
I never kept the altar as my nuptial home. but
where the road is spread-eagled like a vein, pomegranate red
ambushing water,
there I can see my thoughts, seeping halos round the trees
making stencils that span a thousand miles over a dying day.

I am the daughter of the Emperor
spilling unbleached words to the audience of
spidercrabs and black widows,
the starch of my mourning veil
leaves dust around our feet like seasonal statues
offering a quicker fate
that perishes as a wafer-memory on the tongue.
their communion to my Father, one of finite derisiveness.
afterwards, time is
never so simple;
I sit on the stone sun dial to chill the lava in my blood.
none approach, instead swim skittishly like waterbugs
as I scatter kisses for herbs through sand dollar faultlines.

I am the daughter of the Emperor
in the last hours of a burial that never came.