I
Many hands hung odes to a decadence before our time. Art turns to specimen a celibate mausoleum. The hush of reverent marble is broken only by the click of guardian heels. Everyday is overcast and over by dawn. A detached head once arranged these relics of an alterable history, dedicated to the western dead. The sleep of reason produces monsters, reads a text card on the wall. The living sentinel passes into the next wing.
II
Once they flew free. Sixteen wings beat against wood treated as gold, a dead symbol ensnared by observance. In boxes, we stored them until color faded from their scales, ground up for pigment and mixed into paint. Consider supper’s rotting present, the window left ajar. A palette is derived from Red Admiral and Cabbage White. Illumination through the dim. Before there was light there was nothing. Now, a means of escape, a way of flying.
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