Flash

good morning.
the earth is quiet. everywhere, the dripping of rain off leaves.
autumn weeps in their shade.
we have a lot to do today.
a fox, dead.
its eyes are open, shining rose-glass beads in a blanket of peach moss.
russet and black and fur in the snow-melt,
long long lashes blinking final, once, against the tree-roots.
mother?

the dragon wakes. her bones creak, with age, with disuse, with doubt? she
unfolds herself and exits.
the bat waits for her on a stump. it too gleams in the dim of the morn--
never has its small stomach looked so soft. it smiles;
it has no teeth.
you sleep long, mother. come. much to do. much to do.
the dragon waves, slowly-- a gesture that asks, no, demands, no, orders a
silence that falls over the clearing like a promise.
she goes without rush to the body of the fox, half-buried in the midden
beneath the holly bushes. it’s already grown small in its hour of death.
she studies it.

the bat fidgets. mother.

the dragon stoops, knees crackling, and collects the fox in her arms. she
brings it back to her nest and lays it down on a hump of grass, and
arranges some candles around it.
when they leave to go about the day, the dragon wears a fine russet pelt
round her long shining wrinkled neck.

first is the mushrooms. their tending must always
come first, or they will get jealous and die.
the bat flits ahead, spry on its tattered wings-- it alights on a
strawberry bush.
the spotted ones go ill, it ventures, looking over the growths on
the base of the trees. they hunger.
the dragon pays the spotted ones no special attention. she shakes
the others with hot pepper and garlic, and warm water and brambles,
and they croon thank you to the backs of her legs.
but the spotted mushrooms turn their faces from her, and she
does not feed them.
as they leave, the bat looks back--
the spotted ‘shrooms have died.

next is the mice. the bat likes this job the most, and flaps ahead
so quickly that the dragon snaps at it when she catches up.

...

-by SkyTreader197