Soul Peddlar

© 1999 Pearl LaVigne
All rights reserved.

Moonlight's rays thicken,
glutting her path with the glow
of a frenzied sour milk river.
Dress of cemetery sleet.
Hair, strings of membranes,
stolen from a rich man's grave.
Her voice slings tendrils of worm-like madness
along my crawling skin.
One whispered word.
"Soul."
Shrill with despair,
stings like a thousand hornets
nesting in my ears.
The exchange is made.
For one blistering moment
ochre flames burst round us,
lick the hairs from my arms
like poisonous kisses.
The air clings heavily with death's rank perfume.
The door safely closed against her.
I brush the ashes of angel's wings
absentmindedly from my shoulder,
ignorant of the seeping wound
where my heart once aspired.

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