The Traders of Rorré
They were already settling at dawn,
when wall shadows were still
in fashion, tempted from down
the Rednow River
by rumors of our caging
the whims of time and the savage
etiquette in our drool of food.
"We are you." they said,
"We rest in the river
and soak the sturgeon dreams
of ancestors."
They offered fish skin rope
for muteness;
took morality for shame.
We fed their driftwood faces,
made them raiment of raven tail
and lion's tooth pappi.
They bartered for our dead
with bread and tales of Rorré.
Our feast was confiscated
and then ritually gifted
soaked in blood and hollow sky.
Trades made like aurochs do
with the tsetse flies;
mourning for the false dawn,
last glimpse of dusk
for a procession of silhouettes,
and our guiltless children
for fractals of thunder
twisted into snares.
J.S. MacLean lives in Calgary, Canada. He has had poetry published in a
variety of publications in Canada, the USA, the UK, and Australia. His first
collection, “Molasses Smothered Lemon Slices” is available on amazon.com. In his spare time he
works.
