It’s been thirty days and today there will be a wedding.

Death and I will marry

Surrounded by his brothers.

 

War greets me as an old friend

In eternal battles with a too-hot lightbulb.

Burn the top of my head like a sun’s touch.

I started the fire, but War maintained it.

 

Famine and I hate each other.

Hunger, constant gnawing ache

In the garbage cans of the wealthy.

A rich man’s poor tale of a bug swatted,

Disaster averted;

I searched for food, but Famine poisoned it.

 

A common root binds Pestilence and I:

Dirty disease, the perpetrating of plague,

Ancestors who, for once, killed those who killed us.

I fed on sickness, but Pestilence infected it.

 

Spindly legs, laggy wings, tiny body;

Kaleidoscope eyes greet Death;

A salutation to some supernatural society

And off I go.