Cutting edge

Her lips are the edge of a dagger; sharp, bold.

She makes no move to be apologetic,

even when you question her to the hilt.

She is whole, not half-formed.

She will be. She is.

She is, and will be.

Mind River

It trickles through my veins, pouring

across synapses, moonlight swirled

with mother of pearl

that pools in the corners of my eyes.

Here, in my hand, goading my muscles

to grasp the pen and shape the smoke

with definite, crisp strokes before

those snippet thoughts think to flee.

A scene from a new idea

Tia’s arm flinched as Lannah adjusted the mechanism at her wrist, using a red-hot needle to inscribe the Tsa markings needed to reinforce both the spellwork and metalwork holding it together. Unable to stop herself from smirking, Tia analysed her friend’s serious expression despite the Elvis Presley track blaring through the spellcrafted speakers on the walls. Although the song was six hundred years old, she couldn’t deny Lannah had good taste. ‘You always get that same look of severe concentration on your face when you fix me up.’

Lannah finished the Tsa she was working on and sat up, rolling her shoulders back with a sigh. Her eyes were dark with lack of sleep. I probably look just as bad, Tia thought. ‘That’s because you are particularly hard to repair,’ Lannah said. ‘Do you have any idea how many extra enchantments I have to put on your arm just so it can keep up with your raiding antics?’ She stretched her arms up, adjusting herself. ‘Of course, if you didn’t feel the need to keep ripping it off every time you get in the slightest bit of trouble, my job would be much easier.’

Tia made a fist with her metal fingers, testing them out. Satisfied, she sat up, facing Lannah. ‘If I didn’t yank it off, then me and the team would be toast right now. My magic isn’t half as powerful with it on, and the colonists down on that planet aren’t the friendliest of people. And they’ve got two witches of their own. I nearly got spell-speared in the back.’

She jumped off Lannah’s white operating table, nearly hitting her head on the lamp the engineer had been using. She shivered. Now that she wasn’t focused on the pain from her metal arm being fixed, she noticed how cold it was in the room. She grabbed her jacket from the coat rack and zipped it up to her chin, grateful for its cosy warmth.

‘Maybe they felt that a team of raiders suddenly appearing to take all their tech away was a touch uncalled for?’ Lannah suggested, making a quick Tsa in the air with her finger. Immediately, Tia felt the air in the room get warmer. She chewed the inside of her check, quenching down the familiar pang of envy that rose up inside her. If she’d been born with witch gene zero, she would be able to use Tsa marks too. But she hadn’t. She had plain witch gene zero one, like the majority of witches aboard the Merlin.

‘It’s not their tech anyway. It’s Cosmic Witch’s,’ Tia replied, running her fingers through her short hair. Still feels weird to have it this length, but I guess it’s practical. ‘Anyway, we’re only following orders. They want it back as quickly as possible, we had no time to negotiate.’ More like we were told specifically not too. The truth disgusted her just as much as it did Lannah, whose mouth had stilled into a thin line.

The engineer turned away to her desk and began typing up her report, absently flicking the music from ‘Love Me Tender’ to ‘A Little Less Conversation’. ‘If you’re ready, you can sign out on the module. The form should already be on the screen.’ She shot a slight grin over her shoulder. ‘Try to be more careful next time.’

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If only to see you

I’ve got eyes on my hands and they’re watching you.

They’re watching you even when I’m not.

I can’t stand to, you broke me.

Buried me under rags made to look like fine silk,

curse words uttered so sweetly they might be compliments,

palms to my cheek masquerading as gentle caresses.

I can see that change in your eyes

even when I don’t care to look.

Notice your posture straighten, lips purse.

I can look away, but the eyes on my hands

stay focused, recording your every move.

Frequency; time, date. Evidence.

Finer things

Is it a diamond you seek?

Cut and shaped with princess blood,

adding to the value?

Pure, elegant, transparent.

Polished to perfection, mirroring

what you wish to see?

Should I congratulate myself for thinking

you do not care for those

neatly fractured inside, tarnished, imperfect,

but diamonds none the less?

You never wanted to see the wild flowers.

Only those cultivated over years

by expert growers and displayed by florists

to show their most enticing features.

But look how much life

those wild flowers bring.

That’s what I’d like to say, yet it’s too late.

Your eyes have turned to stone.

Unwrap

I’m handed a ball-shaped mass of paper.

Glitter bows and silver pen all over.

Sometimes the small things that are inside

count more, you say. Unwrap it. You’ll see.

Wire cage under the paper. Hanging

from the top, five metal balls. Newton’s cradle.

Tick, pass centre, tick.  Like my heart.

Like your heart. Beats passing back and forth.

Momentary silence between them, but

always an answer in the end.

Brush faces

A woman stands, eyes intense, hair

in an up do, silver but young.

Gold pins mask dark shadows.

Next, her friend, tall, drawn,

slender with even more slender neck.

Plain face, ruddied with exertion.

Then, to the right, one with haughtiness

etched on her nose and the arch of her brows.

Black hair neat, pearls about her neck.

On the end, mouse hair with soft brush,

thin mouth that has been long silent,

and eyes wide as they are sad.

Far Above The Clouds

The man uncurled his fingers and looked at his palms.

Bells. There were bells, tubular ones

resting there, instead of his bag of secrets.

The rain still poured down on the mountainside,

yet the clouds were below him, not above.

His hand twitched, and he fell forwards

into the long grasses, through soil and rock

until he could not be told apart from it all.

The bells clattered to the ground, ringing

out for the valley to hear. The rain

stopped at the sound of those bells.

Those tubular bells igniting the day.

Knitted heart

I hold the lines of my heart in my hands.

I stretch them out, red so you can’t miss them,

and splay my fingers so I make a cradle.

Into it you begin to pour yourself,

entangled in this pulsing, beating net

that is me and now you. One. Whole. Us.

Let’s chat

Like being slit with a scalpel

I find myself open and bleeding,

fractured into shards of agate,

my layers exposed. All

I’m doing is speaking, one

to one. My palms are saunas.

My gaze fixed to your mouth,

not your eyes. I know

I need to speak. I must.

A stone mouth doesn’t make it easy.