Good Bones, by Maggie Smith / Witch Hat Atelier, by Kamome Shirahama
[Image ID: Poem lines interspersed with manga panels.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
[Qifrey lifting up Coco]
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
[Qifrey and Olruggio as children]
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children.
[Qifrey alone in his tower, and getting hit with lightning as he experiments with the ink bottle]
The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
[A young Luluci running away from abstract, shadowy grabbing hands]
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
[Qifrey in the waterlogged coffin]
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
[Engendale with his slimy brimmed hat]
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children.
[Qifrey with a peaceful expression, a herd of cattle, flying birds, and a shot of a traveling cart from behind with Qifrey and his apprentices inside]
I am trying
to sell them the world.
[The atelier and the field around it]
Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right?
[Qifrey showing Coco the windowway in a shower of flower petals.]
You could make this place beautiful.
End ID]
