King of Shade, King of Scorpions
Then it was cold, like small and selfish
teeth, then it was rude, like a poison, and that
was your voice, wasn’t it, and that
was the thrust of your voice taking up my own,
as any boy takes up his kite, in the village,
in the sheep-ring he manages, as the god that will
swoop down and take him. Weren’t these the days
of abduction, after all, not rape? When to prove
your devotion insisted a theft of some kind: tear way
the boy-flesh, the boy-bone, and there it is:
the solid, red muscle, the thrush, thrumming in its strict
and freakish shade. To know it, you had to
claim it; claim it, break it. The god penetrated,
with his raw antenna. You moved in me, like prayer.
Floating Wolf
