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