The Banshee Raises Her Wail

Bean Sidhe (Banshee)

Deeply sonorous, most defenseless

Unaware, unawake, poor man.

Red curtains shiver o’er shuttered window

Painting all the air with blood cast shapes

I sigh, next to him

Dressed in spasm of shadow from candlelight

Breath so quiet, sweet taste of camphor and kiss

Lingering like a faraway lover

For I am already gone and done

Already in the trees outside raising my wail

Already calling pale armies to raid

House and Soul

“Come down and be a good girl,” he said.

“Come down and make a home and try love

And wake before each sunrise next to me.”

And I did.

And oh the invisible cage of his embrace even when

He was not with me.

We built seasons, tore down dreams,

We built routine, tore down ideas.

I could not make a home with all the wild in my body

I could not constrain the savage driving my heart

So I wake before each midnight next to him

So the feral cry climbs in my body and twitches my limbs

He is all beauty – base and innocent of the thing I am

He believes darkness only lives out in the trees

Poor man.

For when I next open my mouth, it will be the last sound he hears.