The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Collateral
by Sheikha A.

She makes them hoard
until their arms shrink

into their shoulders;
she says she walked

over cracked scry – time
does not exist for her –

the verses on holy pages
opened a door. She entered

a holograph leading to
her future, her body

wrapped in magnificence:
gold brighter than the sun,

pearls laced with blinding
iridescence of the moon -.

She entered their home
backward-feet as wind

of recession whipping
flat dunes of barren

deserts. They were rich
orphans given holes

of her clothing – transfer
and lock. She says

she walked into echoes
of starving bellies;

her nose curved as a hook
biting bait, words maternal

and eyes wild as razors.
They were fed to comply;

learning to be alone
yet watched – genes

tangled – she chained
them in love as stale

as sleep, as stark as fear,
as hollow sewers

as ravenous abyss.
On winter nights,

she collected remains;
shrunk their days

and shrunk the light.
They began to hide

what was left of them –
unprotected destiny –

locked blood
locked amulets

knotted threads
and embedded needles –

she shrunk land
and expanded water;

they collected grain
upon grain of sand

depleting; shrinking
under her weight –

heads sunk
into their necks,

bodies buried
under hoarding.

Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!

Please don’t forget to visit the other WiHM 11 projects taking place!