52
The Forge POETRY
Sundown Town By: Julie Tran
the setting sun spurned their souls through the rotting underframe and floorboards glimmered soft a wistful spell and song of mockingbirds with manilla wings the lulling lament seeped out onto the gray dust of the streets a fog of smoke wreathed sleeping heads as the nearby town became ghosts with the white of their skin paling and the flush of their cheeks purpling the rising moon burned their blood scattering and scurrying up the chapel hill of stone and ashes like a writhing mass of silver maggots they carried blazing firelights with cotton wicks the smothering heat brazened their faces in search for burnt and decaying flesh the swarm buzzed in riled unison disease desecration and death to the persecuted who would serve their hunger
Spring 2021