She flirted with death,
buried
her face in his black hoodie,
arms ‘round his waist as if they shared a motorcycle.
She breathed in his place, breathed in his scent,
and it was sickly sweet like
the rotted body
of an overripe strawberry.
But death’s ribcage is not for show;
his stopped heart needed only time to grow fond,
inexorably, of her fearless nearness.
Her tantalizing dance on his edges
rattled his bones to their marrow.
She would have grown old waiting for him

"How could we be so cruel
as to put it to work?
The wind has not a mother,
nor a father--not even a home!
All it has is the sky for a companion
and the leaves of tall trees for a voice."

"No, brothers, this we cannot do.
We must find work
from the waves in the sea,
or the coal in the earth,
but let the wind blow however it may,
free and unharnessed as it has
from before time and as it will
long after we become moss, and rot, and earth."