I
His grimace was
   all he knew --
So everybody saw

A knife-edge,
   grinning into the black
with a howl

Widening, a tunnel
   tearing out, and God bled
in the tower


II
Above fallen corpses
beautiful fields of Nysa

Now, asphodels overrun the field...

   he is dark and tall,
   a wild dog,
   an unripe plum

I thought he was going

(He came.)

They all faded


III
He grinned,
his own leftover

and for a moment
the dusk rages,
scorched-looking,
dumb and ruined

See the cracks,
the **** of the world,
the crinkled sigh
rapt in the river of blood

Something evil
rises, and his eye
stays rapt

a blackbird
in a plum tree

at the edge of civilization,
no rank or status

his disgrace hung
in the center of a spiderweb
yet when he looked at me, my temper broke
with a sort of poisonous respect

in the hoax there was no clear ground.

He knew I was angry

I had to believe it again

the second exit
was on the rope none of us choose

completely naked,
red maddening the bull
the horizon, puddled
upon the sea, slithered
through the blackberry vines,
    spilling out
        against the freckles

her private totem, a love bite

unclenched the tides
through the saltmeat and peach
that fires evolution’s motor

a witch drew a deep breath

  and when the men saw
  she said nothing —

  Nothing happened.

it was her hands —
gathering up blood-soaked cloths
  careless of the evils they did
  with the healer’s gift —
motioned them to come in

Vastening,
  shining like a dark lake
  in the dappled light
  between the cliffs and the sea

She saved me, and I
  gave her the way in the dark

and she was free

Eyes wild, ringed red, gazing out of the page --

   the watcher over the wilderness
   does not sleep.

In the forest primeval
   there is a glade — the real world
   of our filth bleeds in
   drop by drop, reddening
   the sky, and Öli
       witnesses all.

Haunted by apparitions
   of fear, figments
   coming to presence,
   barely corporeal in the dappled sun,
   the great owl knows better
       than to turn away from the unknown;

The aperture, sealed, was yet
   made to be opened, and though
   the devil tree, screaming blood, vomiting
   anguish into the wastes, was felled
      and the blasted heath reclaimed by the forest,

Daring trees grow sparsely
   and wither around the gnarled stump
   where He who has seen too much
   waits, hoping that stupid ******* coyote
   does not bring the city back with him

      ...again

This noise out-shouting
                        the signal

grotesque and unspeakable
the blunderbuss of all cøcks
           at its veiniest throb
        clubbing voices to death
        with tangerine pomp

        thrusting turgidly down
     liberty's throttled gullet on a bed
        of rusty newspapers and
       celebrity dishrags

leaves little time for hope,

needs many hands to bring it
to flaccid silence
          where it belongs.

            Many fists to soften
        oppressive skulls for the world to see
                and find the inspiration
                                                to act.

My bedroom was so large,
and I was so small.

Cleaning it was such a task,
when organization
was so new, a nascent skill.

I didn't know then,
but I might have had a brother,
and our family was too poor.
Once, Mom was late, and
exercised her reproductive rights.
But afterwards, Dad
wondered aloud
if it was the right thing.

Bad timing.

And she hated him for two years,

starting here.

And when she found me in a pile of toys,
having failed at my singular task,
I can only imagine

   what she must have been thinking,
   when she took hold of my wrists,
   and suddenly the world spun

      the walls a kaleidoscope

a wail tore forth from her lungs,
a sound I'd never heard.

   And -- for a moment --
   I was flying

      a moment of weightlessness

      the moment she let go of my wrists

      the moment my spine hit the bedframe

      the moment all the breath exited my body

      the moment of silence in the wake

Never had she done such a thing.

      The moment the shockwave hit --

the moment my cry was truncated
with a "Shut up!"
And she could never admit that it happened.

It hurt her too much to know
that it did. I learned

that empathy is
a cross to bear, that some words
twist the knife
in someone else's skin.