GRANDPA’S FINAL WAVE

Horrid sound of weighted feet,

rat-prints in ash,

breadcrumbs, of human meat.

surrounding shadows speak,

the paramount to feast,

crunches of bone in incisor’s maw,

squeaking above rending claw.

She pauses, in latex yellow

gazing upwards, to a fell expanse

of long scorched trees.

Behind her mask, releasing a heart-torn gasp.

This had been her grandfather’s face, 

it flapped in the acidic wind,

mask-less, bodiless

on a stretch of high branches, 

a flag of familial gore,

waving with the same vigor

Grandpa had shown,

in life.