Five Thorns for an
Unnamed Beast 1
You're the cigarette I lit
in a life when I smoked;
the night I almost put my soul
up for sale, tasseled and oiled.
2
You're the crop that failed
religiously, year after year,
replanting itself on my land
where something else wanted to grow.
3
You're the fur I could not wear
when snow rearranged my bones.
I painted a hearth over my wall,
stood shivering in its reds and golds.
4
You're the illness turned epidemic,
the syringe loaded not with cure,
but a mutating virus injected
in a vein, long collapsed.
5
I'm the smoke suffocating you,
the searing flame metaphor,
the earth opening my wound
to receive your cremains. |