Joan of Arc martyred herself in the middle of George Street
Bright white and blinding, lit with
A camera-flash blaze of 3-D light.
And all gathered to watch her burn
Backs tingling, spines clenching with the
Hypothetical violence of vehicular slaughter.
Every road is an abattoir
Cats eyes the rent hearts of catchpenny saints
Every one-way a gutter for the blood of ritual.
And the triple-sunned white sky is filled with screaming
Great holes punched in it, bone-sample clusters
Through which something is uncoiling,
Something ancient.
Ahead, the shelves above shelves of sleep
Are hearing the wrong voices
Some guttural Latin glossolalia
Yet still obeying—
Folding in like the seven plates of the Earth all slipping
Looming over Joan’s baying crowd,
Undeviatingly and inexorably vertical.
Commended (seniors)
Molly Crighton
Year 13, Columba College