Ella Is the First Rider

Ella is the first rider
Margaret is the last
The night is as black as a miner
Stars are spun like glass
Elephants and birds, tattooed beneath her shirt
Relics from her time in Asia Minor
Ella is the first rider, cold and pale as chalk
The bones of her face are aligning underneath the oaks
She sees men as skin and bones
With hearts in the shape of stones
Perpetrators of some terrible vision
Ella is the first rider
Her mouth is so severe
The fierce little jaws of a lizard
Are dangling from her ear
And her every freezing breath is drawn from the mouth of death
And her every little whisper is a murder