Serf
︎︎︎ Andres Priest-Lopez
︎ FEB 7, 2022
This is the heart berthed outside of heaven.
Years lived for the agonies
wandering between transient ground and the promise of water,
A heart for the grieving of warm dust
passing through the hole beneath the doorway
and an ear against the hardwood,
listening for the sound before song.
We started to pick at absence together
as it announced itself to us
from the wheatfields of the demesne,
a voice as hard and slow
as the stone of castle walls;
“This is all there is.”
It came again as a chorus
from the crashing paradise.
Words from the beautiful and the selfsame worlds.
We wanted a house, and a family there.
We wanted that, and a very good death.
No inhuman endings.
Is this all there is?
In a way, yes.
Years lived for the agonies
wandering between transient ground and the promise of water,
A heart for the grieving of warm dust
passing through the hole beneath the doorway
and an ear against the hardwood,
listening for the sound before song.
We started to pick at absence together
as it announced itself to us
from the wheatfields of the demesne,
a voice as hard and slow
as the stone of castle walls;
“This is all there is.”
It came again as a chorus
from the crashing paradise.
Words from the beautiful and the selfsame worlds.
We wanted a house, and a family there.
We wanted that, and a very good death.
No inhuman endings.
Is this all there is?
In a way, yes.