Shortlisted
The Copper Mine of the Gobi Desert
The ISF Academy, Secondary Division, Lily Lee, Poetry: Group 3
It’s not without a certain amount of savage decadence do we
file our nails, our wicked-sharp bulldozers
and tear off her beige summer dress, grains crumbling as
the fabric pulls apart and reveals
soft
pale
skin
like the color of dawn, but a little more
helpless.
we dig them in, our bulldozer-nails
scraping up the deadskincrust
trapping grit underneath our ripper claws –
and yet
it’s not until we gouge out her flesh
does the copper begin to pool
do we smile, in the unholy satisfaction we find
within our exploitations, our promised luxuries
within her soundless, silent screams
within Schadenfreude, and the other beautiful things we hide
behind meretricious fans and powdered faces and Chinese porcelain walls.
“… Here, you see?”
“She’s a resourceful one.”
“She’ll be worth so much out on the market.”
– or so they screech, the cacophony of a million voices
shrieks clanging against each other, decibels ricocheting off the charts
an earsplitting descant of amalgamated chaos-harmony
all of them demanding and rioting and pressuring
for a Legalization. a Compromise. a Deal.
and
so
the
gavel
falls
“… Ladies and gentlemen, please observe two minutes of silence for our much loved
comrade”
because the verdict is MINE.
and so it begins, firstly with
Inspection.
a pretty word, perhaps
for drilling holes into her skin
