After The Knife Poem by Raynette Eitel

After the Knife

…and for the rest of her life,
that unwanted child came to her in dreams
walking without a sound on wounded feet.
There had been no rain
for forty days and forty nights
and the ground was hot.

She waited for him, wondering what to say
to this child with maimed feet and a bruised heart
as he stepped through dreams beneath ruthless stars
threatening to fall. She waited for the child
who kept walking in silence, growing smaller
as he came closer until at last he disappeared,
leaving bloody footprints across the sands of dreams.