spring poem

the beast speaks

i woke to my heart in a reddened place,
the sun drying dark on the backs of my paws,
each tree woven round with crimson light--
the birdsong, the low-throated insect song
was the light's weft.

i was alone and attired all over in the kill,
so solidly alone that sound itself sank to a backdrop,
and in the breathless wilderness,
at center of that pressing molten sunset,
my mouth covered in dirt,
dirt in my nostrils, dirt

scattered like a rotting constellation across
my shoulders, i saw her, dark-eyed, the white rose
cupped
in her hands,
her mouth
curved
like a petal.

but i knew she was not there.
it was a vision,
and as such hardly bearable.

it's difficult to keep to sanity
in such a monstrous loneliness.
difficult

to wait.
difficult past
all bearing.

i cry out, sometimes,
pressed

under the red-stained sheets
of these sunsets,
and the sound of my voice
is subverted

at its tenderest point

into the body of my demons.