To A Singer, From Her Songs

Clare O’Brien

You have driven us for years.
Counting our notes like sheep, urging us over storm-weathered hills.

Our cries are nothing to you.
Some you catch, stretching them beyond your rhythm, into the dark.

Some of us you call, softly at first;
Some you flay alive, the sound reverberating as you feed.

Sated, you are tender then;
caressing our bones, draping our wet skins over the chords to dry.