Low Stakes for High Yields

She's throwing her face of need

all aglow and hopeful

begging victimhood.

Imagining nobody notices

eyes-wide, downturn

pulling photons from the floor

grasping at ancient, shattered pieces.

Oh, but he's an old hand at this

senses, by design, adept at this

scented fertile fields

heard her long before she spoke.

Yet anew she'll try again

caution uplifted

not as bastion,

but seed cast to the wind.

Scattering

hoping they'll grow in boughs 'round her

to deflect the worst of him.

Oh, but he's an old hand at this

a product of generations perfecting tools for this:

whether by axe, by rake or by hoe

he knew her path long before its growth.

She looks upon him now

strutting about her blasted field

offering token, vague resistance

before yielding

like the crop he knew her to be.

Helias

She came as does morning

radiant and becoming in introduction

illuminating

flaws, goals, underlying structure

By high noon there was clarity

visions possible only at deep night

stirred into being by her apex.

Dusk, though long of shadow,

held comfort of embrace

of held hands

solidarity of mutual purpose

red-ringed

by veiled anger.

As the night came

she was gone.

Suns

Hair explainable, perhaps only attainable,

via jagged electric lines from the sky

yet eyes follow, shimmer greengoldenbrown

with none of storm's lined chaos, no,

but maybe focused-inflicted madness

as

they

settle straight-on, brightened above wide-eyed

smile

-something new, there,

shattered-glass that's mended fast

upturned hopes but sails at half-mast.