Jennifer Crow
Silk Road
Who
follows the road beyond the city?
Ghosts
whirling dust under sunset skies
and
wizard-folk sweeping the bone-strewn path
with the
long hems of tattered robes
stitched
in tarnished sigils and scented
by skin
and spice. The guilty creep
through
moonlit valleys, the hopeful hurry
across
mountain passes, the lost gather berries
and
mourn kin with their ancient songs.
Some
merchant, weighted with sharp-hued bolts
of
cloth, bags of pearls, saffron and pepper
bottled
and sealed, watches the horizon
for
storm clouds or bandits riding swift steeds
A
thousand hearts have broken on this road,
a
million coins have spilled in the sand,
untold
dreams have vanished
like
sweat drying in a breeze.
A bird
curls over the hills, a wild horse
raises
red banners from the summer earth
and I
cast a summoning woven from memory
and the captive salt of your tears.
_______________
Jennifer Crow’s poetry has appeared in a number of print and electronic venues. Besides work in Abyss & Apex, she’s also had poems published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Uncanny Magazine, and Kaleidotrope among others. In 2018, she’s also begun working as a slush reader for Amazing Stories’ poetry department, which has been an interesting and educational experience. Readers who are interested in learning more about her work can follow her on Twitter @writerjencrow or join her Patreon.
Editor’s Notes: Crow goes far beyond the historical legacacies of the Silk Road. The images merge an abstract image created with Apophysis—an open source fractal flame editor and renderer (by Lars Sundström) with Golden desert (by Mdtmfghjl on Yellow Wallpaper) to capture “Ghosts whirling dust under sunset skies”
