Poem

When I went away
it came with me.

Followed me everywhere every
where.

In Jerusalem it sweated with me
under a sun that saw
crucifixion and crucifixion and crucifixion.
One looks the same as another
from 93 million miles away.

Across the body of Europe it
rattled with the clacketting of the train while
under the wheels soldiers in repose, unrecovered


bones,
still fought the last war.
Metacarpals and phalanges of skeletal fingers

gripping
the vertebrae of the enemy's twiggy neck
forever holding on as a green blur of trees
whipped by the window.

In Bucharest its ears rang with
strange consonants and the clatter of
hooves where the cobbles


used to be.

And when I returned it followed me
here, everywhere every
where.

Poem

This mother's pups
will not eat what she kills
and they whine and cry
when she draws near.

She grins, all teeth, wondering
what, then, have I become?

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