In the forlorn dark
where the hues are atrophy
and grief
you sit with your ragged hair
dragging pentacles in the dust.

Here the five elements are:
skin, blood, lightning
last breath and
phantomhood.

The word for desire
is "haunted"
in this tilted room
overlooking the broken
cliffs of the moon.

Wendy Rathbone has poetry and stories published in Asimov's, Aboriginal SF, Tomorrow, Writers of the Future, Hot Blood, Bending the Landscape, Tales of the Unanticipated, Dreams and Nightmares, Flesh and Blood, Talebones, Edgar, and more. Her poetry chapbook Scrying The River Styx won first place in the 1998 Anamnesis Poetry Chapbook contest. Her most recent chapbook, Autumn Phantoms, is available from Flesh and Blood Press.