In this black-lanterned valley, only wraiths
blossom in lotus-white, bemoaning
their wind-shaped cloaks, which bind them
to the eternal ensemble of the bloodless.
My spinning wheel counts their footfalls
layering, then thinning into winter-dark roads.
Majesty, as you judge them, I sew their fates;
garments which name them in these sunless lands.
If you watch me still, pocket your wondering heart;
no amount of gauze can dress these bleeding heaps.
Mud-slow the spirits march, in sins of every color —
like powder, undone wishes pile upon my rooftop.
See the dead sovereigns, cape-torn and curse-chapped
wailing for the gold and crowns wasted on their temples.
Their hands, which gripped the throats of kingdoms,
rip each other’s chests for tatters they once trod.
For those wilder than beasts, who you thrill to punish —
in the selves they once worshipped, they shall be adorned.
Yet though I twine their veins, scarf them with entrails,
I weep for the wounds which wet dawn’s eyes, over and over.
Quiet are the strings ribboning my form, yet at times
one strums them into song, like you’ve once done —
like the beaten and guiltless, the sacrificed and small.
I leave them furs and winged shoes for their long walk.
Once my hearthrugs nursed laughter young and old;
familiar steps on the shadow road I await by my door.
Dyed in yellows of bonfires and letters, my palms
stretch like the silks and gold yarns I yearn to share.
Across millennia I’ve spun threads of sun and sea,
yet many times unclothed gusts have left me crumpled.
Secrets tenderly pressed or hatred like molten iron —
textures I shall remember, but can never recreate.
And if I must sleep forever, who shall veil me?
Not the ones I’ve robed, awash in flame or cloud.
Not the underworld’s kings who have cast me down,
nor I, who desired more, and now dares not want.
Majesty, come — in your beggar’s guise, so we stand free as before.
Above, the stars flower to summon both the dead and the living.
If I must sleep, I ask not for rose garlands or a diamond shroud,
only a little light to recall the sun of our days and all its tapestries.
Arda Mori (she/her) is a Malaysian writer of the darkly fantastical. Her work is forthcoming/has been published in All Worlds Wayfarer, Horns & Rattles Press, Apparition Lit, Fifth Wheel Press, and elsewhere. Find her on Bluesky at @armori.bsky.social or at ardamori.wordpress.com.
