Shadows beckon ahead, she grows large and drinks the wind. Nevertheless, she waits for laughter, a sky drunk with sunlight, and after the sudden dark when earth turns to air, she greets the final stun of silence. Locate the cupboard where clean fingernails are stored and listen for scent locked in an orange, yellow stillness of egg yolks, soft churning of custard. Since you're the guardian, keep a slow fire lit and a constant simmering. This is no teacup world.
Wine goes to vinegar.
Corn confronts you like a mouthful of rotting teeth. Everything yields to its soft spot, the zero border where minus begins. In Siberia, during the wedding, the bride was required to wash the feet of the groom and drink the water. Only then was she considered worthy to be taken as a wife. She lifts his right foot then his left soaping between the toes scooping dirt from under nails doing what must be done scrubbing in unleavened silence.