The Breadcrumbs by Patrick W. Marsh
“There is no fate
but the one directly ahead of you.”
The dragon’s smoke whispered from
his throne that sunlight mountain top
a relic-dense, treasure-high,
monument to his golden taste
and lounging, reptilian frame.
“Come into the oven,
it is very warm.”
He coos. His words smile out
from a scaley necklace
of absolute stone.
He’s clouded by
greedy, brimstone breath.
“I respect how long
and far you’ve come.”
This worm’s cave-lair
on a tropical archipelago. Turquoise laced
palm thorned, with pearl sand, and repeating waves.
They’re thunder jealous always
shaking the cavern’s droplets stalagmite-free.
“Others have made the trek
you see their statues.”
A signed manifest of armor
fermenting with cindered flesh,
spark bent and metal melted.
The knights fused against scorched rocks
or permanently drowning in tide pools.
“If they wanted to slay me
you could’ve just forgotten me.”
Instead, their lavish desires
join the phantasm vigil
another rotting leaf on this withered bough.
If the greedy dead could rise
they’d try for glory again.