Call it what you will,
I too have gathered the kindling
of my body from your burning hands
as you do your god's work.
I have escaped into night
like a lonely song escaping from a mouth
on their bed in the dark,
reaching into something colder than fear,
crueller than pain. You can say it is trauma
but I know they will kill me
just because I breathe
like the trees gathering themselves
for the fornication that the storm brings,
at least for those with beds to be fetal upon.
I sit with the storm in my chest
& try to calm all the roused anger
in my head. I too am a movie
on someone's dinner plate,
a skin on the floor
for their father to be proud upon.
I am almost extinct, a child waiting
for mother to tell why it was so important
to breathe here. How much will I be worth
when I make my last exhale?
All the money in the world
will not buy my agony.
All the attempts
will not buy my love?
Hunted to the ground, I wander
this soulless earth, among warm bodies
carrying cold hearts. I dream
with them. I genuflect
before the god of my bone
& I offer my flesh before old altars;
this earth will empty in my absence
or not; because there are men here.
What is more evil?
