The Stoned Viking
You sit at my fathers’ table. We are together, and one again, like
pewter. The old country, the songs of
the mist. The fires burn. My niece and I are the more exotic,
redheaded, like a separate species.
There is an understanding without words.
The whiskey warms us. Your beard;
white from the sun, the salt, the stars; your legs made for the roiling
sea. I see you with forged blade strong
over the sensuous meadow you run. You will return blood spattered and
brilliant. The scars of warriors on our souls. The snow swirls under the moon. A moon that has not forgotten us.
You sit at my father’s table. We are dull, some broken. The mist eludes us. The tea warms us. Your beard; white from the poison, the
anesthesia, the medicine. My father has
scars from the food, your sister from the sun, I from the agony of worry. We cannot see the stars for the cities. We revel in chipped memories eroded through
time. Bolstering ourselves on victories we never took, victories we should’ve won.
No longer do we exist on trade and biblical currency. No longer do our hands grasp iron swords
containing the spirits and ground bone shards of our elders. We are soft.
We touch compounds not elements. We touch things not made from this
earth. There is never enough for caged sick animals drowning in the effluence and
affluence of humanity. Few still read
the moon, but we do have Google we can ask should we lose our way in the
night.
