In the Sun-Sweet Desert

by Alex Dally MacFarlane


Feed me
the bones of our sisters,
the bones we lost and found
in that war —
that desert where we bled
and bit,
that desert where we loved
and hit back
at the army that tore our homes
like it could not tear us.
 
So feed me
the bones of our sisters —
they won't know our strength,
oh they won't know our teeth
as we gnaw their bones to shreds
and build new homes,
new loves,
until we are buried together
woman and fox
skull to skull
in the sun-sweet desert.



Alex Dally MacFarlane lives in London, where she is pursuing a MA in Ancient History. When not researching ancient cities and warrior women, she writes stories and poems, found in Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, Stone Telling, The Moment of Change and Here, We Cross. A handbound limited edition of her story "Two Coins" was published by Papaveria Press. She is the editor of Aliens: Recent Encounters (Prime Books), forthcoming in 2013. She is currently reading a book about the possible early speakers of the Indo-European language family.

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