Kate McNamara & Robert Verdon, #9, White Raven, revised version

within the ink universe

veering through the veins,

a succubus, the author milks night,

lets the dark blood out onto the page

till a word forms from each clot.

within

the night’s satchel of stars,

hung upon a nail driven high into midnight air,

quills of light lie, and white ravens;

she shapes each half-forged sense

to make a chord, a wedge to split the days,

setting it free in hidden sun

to dance across the wind,

in the shadow of a shower of

hard black seeds gleaming like verbena;

within,

in season after season

she tends their fragile growth,

each savage heart as it germinates

within,

in the promise of the dawn,

in the white raven dawn,

as faint as a star-shadow

stars are thrashing

in their broken husks

like seeds and words awaiting light