[Night, she comes]

Night,
she comes

to collect.
A ghost amidst

the roaches. Her breath
shakes birds loose from the trees.

Eyes blue as chemical bile.
Copper hair curled, coiled at her nape.

A stillness, untouched. At her elbow,
a bowl of peaches, ripening to blood.

*

[And now the heat.]

And
now the

heat. Now the
sharp smolder of

inherited grief.
Abandoned cars, heaped high,

create a cracked horizon.
A thicket of asphalt, steaming.

Lambs leaking oil in the pasture.
I float on my back in the red water.

*

[Our bellies full,]

Our
bellies

full, we watch
the abattoir

pearl its roses
out onto the black streets

at dusk, the gutters blushing.
Overhead, the moon bulges, pale

as the face of a drowned man. Tell me,
beloved— am I still your animal?

*

[Blood grazes]

Blood
grazes

the field. Man
of smoke, he roams

under a green sky.
Obsolete machines, grand

skeletons of wire and steel,
gleam overhead. Trailing behind,

his black steed limps, leaks light. Stringy mane
aflame. Still, they outpace what chases them.