Badriyah Visindi walked
Barefoot paired with an outfit to match
Along the Quarter's well-worn lanes
Her newborn dragged behind like a recalcitrant mutt
Umbilical cord a strangling leash
Mewling and bloodying those ancient cobblestones

"A song about your mother if you please,
Of searing separation,
Of riotous reunion,
Tell me how you lost and loved,
How a serpent and a vamp,
Found the warmth in one another."

Liaress,
Cheatrix,
Fraudette,
In all the ways that woman can be false,
You falsed the woman out of me.
Pilfered my girlhood,
Stole my old age,
Robbed me with hope
And love and sweet attention.

I hope there's someone like me
In that doleful Dream
In which you dwell
Who can mirror all this pain
Who can brighten your night with stains of scarlet
Who can rock you with amethystine lullabies
Something stronger than me
Something you couldn't leave

Badriyah Visindi walked
Draped in flowing ebon silks
And somewhere in those endless folds
She lost herself and then her kid.

Penned by my hand on the 17th of Scarlatan, in the year 971 AF.