Link Meets the Light Dragon
Carmen Dolina
You traded the life we
recovered, your enduring
self, your research, our
home, all for this weeping
dragon left in their stead.
For a sword I hacked away at
other dragons with—if only
for parts and their bodies—now stuck
atop your skull, waiting
for its next violence.
Is there no world
where we get to be
selfish? Let sacrifices be made by
other heroes, let ears turn deaf to
this mute god? Take one hundred years
off. Live simply. Walk you to the school
of your own making, listen to you
teach. Have our friends
come over for dinner, all night, until
we look at them and see everyone
who came before. In the sky, I am
quiet. Between the two of us, you
were the one meant to speak.
In your silence, who will talk to me?