Alphabet Lesson

Summer’s alphabet had missing letters, and the words of days kept their secrets like the muted eunuchs of some desert sultan’s harem. A girl is comprised entirely of the ghosts of birds and her eyes can set fire to clouds. Another is the child of the whispers of the pools deep inside the Earth where no man shall ever draw breath or sight. There is a girl whose eyes are lunar dreams in whose aches and storms the future may be known, and another whose songs elicit liquid animals to rise, alive, from any pool of water. The missing letters have to be supplied from a place they are remembered. Even those of winter. The words of days keep their secrets like the nymphs of the desert keep their sacred pools. In memory, and wonder. The dreaming waters of the starry verge.