A Scene from Firebird

They gang up on him when he tries to enter through the gate. It is the rigidity of folk tales. Moving like insects, spines maybe severed from brains, their movement repetitiously tight, in a motion prison without escape. That is what frightens all the tender ones, motion slavery, arms in eternal quiver, faces taken away, twisted behind them, and strange formations grown on their backs. They can only gesticulate, nothing to do with death, they paralyze.