changeling

my friend died recently.

their body still walks the earth,

pushing air, pumping blood,

a stranger to me.

i don't know when, where

or why they died—

but i knew you had taken them

when you drove in the knife.

would it be easier if there was

some marker,

a memorial service,

a wake— a hole to peer

deep into the swallowing earth?

it would be easier to remember you in the ground.

is there strange necromancy afoot,

or have you been replaced by wicker

and straw? —does my friend's soul rest,

sleeping, under grafted branch?

in another age i would lay you down

(as tenderly as a babe) in fire-coals

and burn out the fairy that's made its home

in the burrow-hole of your heart.

i would kill you, Otherworldly murderer,

to bring back my friend

or howling, grief-mad,

exact my revenge.

how do you mourn what isn't material?

how do you grieve without a grave?

how do i move on, knowing

my friend is dead, and you mock me

with their flesh?