Thousand: Six Hundred Ninety-Nine

the lips, a filigree on the wind, a scrimshaw on the ear. How many faces do you walk upon, the moaning in the dust of lives flayed from bodies, drifting like cobwebs? The girl opens her eyes. The city walls are still there, the line which may or may not have moved. The old woman has moved away a bit and is looking back at her. “Let me not complain,” the girl says, as she gets up, her legs more sore and stiff than she expected. She ties on the sandals they’ve given her; she's not sure where her shoes