Dare

She had one tale to tell.

She once had worn pastel

to Hell (she took the bargain

weekend Dante tour, her guide

a half-moronic Druid) and had

dire reason now to rue it: she

discovered Hell transmogrifies

pastel into varieties of ghastly

body fluid hues, which seep down

through whatever fabric of a shirt

or skirt or pantaloons and socks

you had put on, eternally to stain it

and your skin, effectively tattoo you

in and out of time with it: that is to say,

forever and a day. She was

the kind of nervous little thing

that almost thinks, is only

ever almost there, as wary

as a parakeet with eczema,

wrapped tight inside her folded wings,

red eyes that hide behind their blinks –

and in some locked vault part of her

intent on, bent on pleading to whatever

bureaucratic corporation managed hell’s

defeats and its procedures, not to mention

tainted her pastels and painted her

with their afflictions so she’d ever-after

play the role of laboratory accident –

“o please, whoe’er ye be,

relent for just a beat

and just once let me dare,

I only want to dare.”

.