SERAPH WINGS

____________

She--English student-to-be

He--Art student

Accessorised well in cool black

Clothes as two roving assassins would

But they weren't assassins

They were just young, creative, self-expressive

Goths in love, bonded souls

With a beautiful future ahead of them

They both enjoyed the quietude before midnight

In a walk through Stubbylee Park--

 

Being singled out

And followed

Treated to loud

Excoriation for an outer

Appearance five drunken

Teenage degenerates found

Unusual, ghoulish, a bit too early for Halloween

WEIRDO! MOSHER! FREAK!

Not a chosen lifestyle

Being surrounded, seized upon

Frenzy of punches

Flurry of kicks

Sadistic laughter--

Sophie cradled Rob's

Bruised, bloodied head

In her pale, slight arms

Resting on her lap, given

Succour and protection

From an undeserved attack

LEAVE HIM ALONE!

Sadistic laughter

Orgy of stomping

Played on repeat

Both young lovers

Left battered

And unconscious

"A right mess" bullies made

 

Alternaphobic

Violence

Wasn't part of their

Plans for that evening--

 

Populus damnant quo non intelligunt

People condemn what they don't understand

 

Large feathery growth

A pair of them

Sprouted out of Sophie's back

Coal-black plumage

Resembled her desired life

Different and exquisite

Unveiled to the world--

She stood before the prone

Forms of Rob & herself

Said her farewell

Tacitly to her dearest heart

Lips pressed lips, tender moment

Before spreading her brand

New seraph wings

Wide and crow-like

Shiny under streetlights

Beating in unison, her

Black boots lifted from ground

Finally travelling

Skyward--

 

Sophie sacrificed her own life

So Rob could live on

And tell the tale

Of their final

Tragic evening together--

 

Although her time on

Earth was stopped short,

Sophie flies on

A seraph now

Touching kindred spirits

Daring to be different

Daring to be themselves

Despite the hate

Demands for sameness

Forced conformity, hive-mind

Mainstream whose response

Is more frightening

Than an outsider's look--

 

Scrawled condolences

To a mother in England

From a childless

Black poet in America

Who never held faith in

The good ones with haloes & wings--

 

___________________________

W: 2.16.17

[ For Sylvia Lancaster, mother of Sophie Lancaster. ]