By the roadside,
stood the gypsy's sad horse,
swaybacked and gray-eyed,
chewing aimlessly on the dead brambles
of a dead bush,
untethered and unrestrained,
but too old and too tired
to go anywhere else.

Beneath the mud-caked canopy
of her broken-down wagon
sat the gypsy,
her eyes held open only by fatigue.
In the darkness,
her black candles
flickered in the gray evening wind
while the curtains fluttered
like ghosts uncertain of flight.

And there she would wait
for the blind merchant
she had seen dimly through the dust
covering her murky crystal ball.
She would wait
for the low, coughing laugh,
the blade hidden under his coat,
and the fading sound of hooves
becoming more distant in the night.