A trapped angel

flares her white light,

magnesium-bright,

 - an illusion of a hole

in the warm black enclosure,

 

blinding,

 

if it could be seen.

 

Concealed in the heart

or the head,

she hides in a pinprick dazzle,

flashes into a star

or throws her brightness

from a towering pillar,

 

perpetual, intense.

 

It is a cold, clean light,

white champagne

or arctic ice.

 

She is a caged spirit,

vibrant,

pulsating,

 

mourning

and elbowing

the withering demise

of her rotting confines,

 

helplessly

trapped in a vessel

which daily decays

around her

 

as she blazes, blazes

in the dark,

 

a perfect clarity

watching organs blacken

and muscles slacken,

bones brittle like sapped twigs,

huddled in a bag

of dry elephant folds.

 

She sings a lament

as colour leeches into

white paste.

 

As the ticking stops

she shrugs off the useless debris

which raced ahead like the hare

 

and paid no heed.

 

She is boundless,

an unveiled spirit free to soar

and flee,

untethered

by the fickle cradle.