“Descent” by Mari Ness

            Sometimes
     they pass
           each other 
                 on the way:
            the young girl 
      and the drunk. 

                        She, 
                     pale, he, 
                          flushed; he, 
                   bleeding, she, 
          untouched.  

            How’s life,
they say, as if
this is just a cup of coffee,
a chance meeting in a store.
                        how’s life. 

The stone
roller’s hands 
still bleed.

                         I got
                         the girls to taste 
                         my wine.
                                     Almost dropped
                                     their water jugs.
 
The vultures
still feed.

Almost 
            their lips meet
                       on the path. 

                                    Almost.

            Her hand in his
            is very cold. 

His hand in hers
is wet.  And they

            have many steps to take,
            so many shadows to breach,
            and their guide 
always hungers.

Other work by Mari Ness appears in Reactor, Clarkesworld, Uncanny, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Diabolical Plots, Nature Futures, Strange Horizons, and other anthologies and zines, including right here in past issues of Kaleidotrope. A micro-chapbook, Let me tell you of that garden, was released by Sword & Kettle Press as part of their New Cosmologies Series, and a tiny collection of tiny fairy tales, Dancing in Silver Lands, is available from Neon Hemlock Press. Find out more at marikness.wordpress.com or at Bluesky at @mariness.bsky.social, or check out free to read reprints at Marikness – Medium.