crystalline echos 
of webs run jagged
collapsing against the face 
of what history wrought. 

winds stripping flesh:
the immolate cries 
at a thousand stakes
freed from the old mortar 
churned under one hundred years 
by the twisting abuse of saints.

you'll know me 
by the raw and torn:
by the salted splines 
of feathers shorn 
bristling under embers 
and by ire 

you'll know me by my face
a starboard shackle 
rusting on the rolling waves 
and chafed joints, iron-scented 
a dark amongst the dark 

you'll know me 

by the callouses of your hands

leaving me in a grave unmarked

yet we return to the same soil 

and when we meet in Hel
You'll know me by my face 
from which you can no longer turn away
and the weight of paper pages
cannot press my gaze astray