Decrypted Glasgow Churchyard
Christina Ciufo
You hear rustic iron gates, creaking their high notes.
Crows serenade a melancholy melody.
A black cat with golden eyes, like two golden coins placed over a dead man’s eyes,
frolicks over the tombstones and mausoleums,
welcoming the Grim Reaper and you.
Autumn winds hollow through the dead scots pines.
Their thin limps waving their goodbyes and sorrows to those slumbering in the Earth.
Your eye catches glimpse of an abandoned decrypted white church
built, worshipped, and forgotten during Henry VIII’s maddening reign.
Marble angels with chiseled eyes weep scarlet blood down their stone faces.
Stray dogs with mangled and uncleaned fur roam from tombstone to tombstone, howling
to the crescent moon.
You hear phantom voices singing in chorus of their untimely death and anguish.
You heart palpitates your excitement and dread throughout your being, like River
Kelvin’s waters drenching the rocks and tree trunks.
Apparitions with ghastly hollow pale faces rise from their graves, appears and float
towards you, with malicious burning in their eyes.
Your heart beats fast and fast. You are unable to swallow down your fear in your throat.
You walk backwards, pinning your back against the iron gates.
They come closer and closer. An inch to your face, they say in a wrathful moan,
“You have tainted our grounds with your sins. Get out, get out, get out.”
