I dreamt of you
last night
you were ancient
in your arid ambitions

still
I loved you

mercury temples
worshipping lines
mirage homelands

have you
lived that long

but never learned
to meditate
to pray without fear

so tooth'ed
digits like daggers
armed wives' tales
telling happenings
shifted into

what have I done
look what you made me do

your terrorized
ancestral memories
will claim
youth sacrifice

blood lines
sublimate in tephra

droned distance
does not make
it humane

vaselined fabrication
petroleum nightmares
greased tropes

that were never
but worse than
that

not quite like that

weep brackish rivers
as you perpetuate
atrocity and fugue
worse than

that

I grieve you
for making me do
this to your lambs

look at my tears
that track through
bloodlines

wait, that's me
that's my child
that's your child

you have grown
in limb

ferocious in vengeance
atrocious in fear

but still
I love you

I grieve
for your savage
youth that demands
blood sacrifice

for arid
ambitions

still

I love
you