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Canticle
By Melissa Christoffels

"Canticle for Dark Lovers"
32 x 32 Digital Painting by Melissa Nolledo-Christoffels
October 2006

excerpt
CANTICLE FOR DARK LOVERS
By W.D. Nolledo

"IT HAD BEEN A NIGHT FOR LOVERS and today the morning was sunlight in the face and in the city held by building and man both, the birds flew out of the trees and met together in the east where they flew for their food. Under them, cats of the night tumbled over garbage cans and prowled the world left by pedestrians. It had also been a night for scavengers and they collided at the mouths of debris, scratching the cats away, hauling back broken conditions to be made new again, scraps, demented favors, the bottoms of bottles where still hung back the sweetness of milk or the tang of a wine. Snarling and snatching, the beggars multiplied and very soon, the dogs came too. From a window, a man laughed, it was a roar. So harsh was its impact upon the denizens bleeding below that they scattered, mewling, mendicant and stray, scurrying away with whatever they had clawed from the dump. And when still a few of them lingered, there was another laugh, louder this time, and this time they were so pitifully deployed on the ground, cowering in holes dug with talons, scampering below and above and away, to join all the other bitches in their gutters.

© Melissa Christoffels

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