MONOLITH

it has club-hands
ungraceful, dried into contorted monuments,
useless. it bears no fruit,
only blackened, gnarled knots,
pitiful broken spikes,
ashy peelings of reptilian skin.
its feet have been broken with shards of iron
and were it not paralyzed,
it would convulse in the throes of atrocious dolor-
yet still as a statue,
it weathers its misery,
plagued by the rattling throats and bony fingers
of murderous birds.

-Jade B.