Nuriko

I wait alone on the empty road
The dust motes of fate eddying in currents
Around my bare-shod feet and cracked toenails
Sifting through the broken dirt
Like snail shells

Darkened lights, memory of voices
Drift in like shallow destiny
Floating gently on rippling indigo currents
Water so soiled from the winds and rain
And salty from the storms

Laughter is pain and life is death
Grasping my future with one torn hand
Holding my past in the other
With the force of a thousand knives
And woman's silent serenity of strength

I can see the end of the road now,
Wrapped in shifting shadows of flame
Am I a child, watching the sunset
Wrap itself around the love I never knew?
A princess of the stars, dancing

Or just a man clutching at the river of music
That drips in jeweled droplets
Waiting for the final trumpet?