“We’ve been walking for a long time through a dark tunnel.
We do not remember the beginning. Our horses remember color.
What breached the opacity was our goat hearts.
It would have killed me too. I had a daughter and a son.
I had a woman I loved so much, I wanted to wipe up her oils with a rag.
Women die, all poems are women. They’ll tell you things you want to hear.
Body parts are suspended in the corners like the women arranged them there
Just so I would tell you they look like trees. But they don’t look like trees
They look like the rancid flock I caught up with
Just to knife them up and take their water. Now the dirt
Is covered with pools of placid angels. When I step in them
They come back to life, I know the answer.
My feet are worn out now, and my hope’s yarn. When I see my woman again
I’ll give her cow parsley from that spot by the river
Where we used to throw parties for four straight days.
My friends are my elections, I choose them for God. So they’re there
And I’m here. There are not so many of us now,
Really I don’t know the drip from the split.
I’ve been ripped like a shirtsleeve, I’m mutated.
I survived and barely, I’m all nature. I’m sorry
I stole the water, she’s an angel now. I know what the angels
Say to each other, they’re talking about me. They’re waiting for me
To choose just one more of these freaks. The blood under my nails
Is black, my right ear rings because I lost a fight once.
The water isn’t good enough, I just want the naked one,
If she has another baby, I will kill it. Her skin
Is a knife held up in the smoke. Her body’s like nothing. Nothing.
And it’s beating itself. It’s supposed to be me
Touching her, I’m not proud of it. Turkey vultures
Glisten like ointment in the dark. The mercy of God
Abandons, it comforts, forget it,” says the bible, like a nail.
