Coronation

Poem by Diem Okoye

I am not the dragon, but what has slit and flown

out of the scale of its body, which now sags

on the floor. Let me seize you by the hand, lead you

to the cavern, lift the scale, pinching its ridges

between my fingers. Let me invite you to slip

your arms through my heart, pull its skin

over your torso like molten stone, stretch the snout

of its face to your face. Don’t flinch when

the torch beats its amber wings around you.

Don’t you want to feel the roar of a new fire

against yours? Tuck their smoky feathers

into your crown? Now, you may shake your head,

turn away, walk back to your perch, where the knight

before you has left a broken sword, their body

splayed out like a dissected hawk, the floor

tracked with footprints in the ash of torches.

Please, I beg you, unscaled, the dragon slouched

at my feet. It looks as though it has sighed

and collapsed, its frame a heap of crimson curtains.

Wrap its body around yours. There are no villagers

in the balcony to whisper one another, blood

pooling around the bags of bones clutched between

their thighs. It is just you and me and this poem

pinned to the cavern. I hand you the blade and shield.