A Thing Lost

How I wish to move as rivers do.
Around trees and valleys, where lovers wallow,
Where broken men come to wash away their sins.
I want to heal the girls with hearts such as my own. 

But the birds have flown south for the winter,
And the wind not a breeze but biting at my knuckles
Just enough to let the blood seep through the cracks.
The running red makes me wary of you.

You're there when the leaves change.
They crunch under my feet like crepe paper,
And it makes me yearn for what's not there.
A thing lost, a war story forgotten.

It's the days like today, when the autumn air
Twines my sister's ruby hair into a mess of cardinal feathers.
And she laughs, because she doesn't yet know.
She doesn't know of storms like you.

Soon the rain will wash the color from her words,
And her hands will be stained crimson as my own.
For he'll be nothing more than a transparent sense of magic,
And a chill down her spine she cannot rid.