One More Shade in the Shadow City by Bruce Boston

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Narrated by Bruce Boston

One More Shade in the Shadow City by Bruce Boston
Illustration by Sue Babcock
They drowned her 
in the River Magnus
that winds through
the city like some
great mottled snake,
a confetti of debris
upon its sinuous hide.

They drowned her
for what she knew,
what she could tell.
They walked free
among the shadows.

Fate drowned him
in the River Magnus.
Dark waters called him,
waters the color
of midnight clouds.

He was a suicide, 
abandoning a life 
in need of forgetting.
Few remembered him
or mourned his passing.

They met in the depths
of the River Magnus,
their bodies entwined
and limbs flailing
in its sluggish currents,
rising and dipping
in a ghastly pavane.

Amidst the trash
and pollution
and chemical debris,
they gave birth
to a monster
that will soon 
be weaned.

Four-armed,
two-backed,
and four-legged,
it will crawl
onto the banks
of the River Magnus
and scurry away
into the shadows.

One more shade
to join the menagerie
that haunts
and feeds upon
the city night.

 

BIO: Bruce Boston is the author of more than fifty books. His writing has received a Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov’s Readers Award, and the Rhysling and Grand Master Awards of the SFPA. http://bruceboston.com/