Red Field, Night Choir

A red field holds its breath; bats are small knives hung to dry. She stands inside the siren-colour, two carnivores flowering from her hair, their beaks polished like streetlights after rain. Drip. Stitch. Spatter. The wall keeps score. Mascara floods the cutwater of her cheek; the choker is a black hinge, a soft restraint; her mouth a fresh stamp—paid in full. Don’t run. Let the night shoulder past in its leather coat, let the room learn your name the way a blade learns a whetstone, brightening because it’s pressed the right way. All this isn’t a warning; it’s rehearsal. The bats redraw themselves as notes, as routes, as exits scratched into the red. She looks up— and the creatures in her crown go still, two dark clocks agreeing on the hour.