If he remembers her it is in bursts
of knotted veins and
sweet smells
And fault lines that ran through her palms
Trembling
under someone else's fevers.
In the mean time there
are deep
Bowls of wounds, reaching hands
And open baby bird
mouths and he
Fills them up as best he can, and is
Entirely
sick of the hollows behind
The eyes and tongues. He wants to
Run,
like a shadow, but his nerves are tangled
Tight in the fists of
the wounded, so
He stays, purses his lips up tight like
A
puckered scar, and when he sleeps
Her hands draw out the sick
magic
Under his forehead and she tells him that -
It
doesn't matter, because they're coming
Hard and fast
now, and he is running
Skinless, like he used to through
the
Swamps except the air is cold here.
But the blood
blossoms on chests and thighs,
Explodes - the vivid, poisonous
Red
that hides furtive under rough,
plain petals, you wouldn't
know it was there.
Hard and fast and when it's
over
There are bodies to be shipped back
To the girl with the
soft fruit of a
Mouth that he would like to kiss,
Run his
thumb along the ridge of
Her chin, alone in the pristine
Sanctity
of an empty church
No bodies this time, just his
Words
against that mouth, words
That are not French words and
Are
not English words, they are
The words that they speak between
The edges of countries.
He sits in the hole that carved Muck
And
Penkala out of existence and thinks
Of insects that swarm up
from
The leafy darkness and bite like
Bullets and of his
grandmother
And voo doo and bad Catholics
and French grammar
lessons and
That mouth, that is a good mouth to
Have - but
they are coming hard
And fast now and as his hands
Disappear
into somebody else's flesh
He recalls a small
boy
Blistered, narrow, running wildfire through
The swamp,
catching flies with his bare
Palms, tipping them into the
wide
Bloody mouth of a Venus Fly Trap,
Trembling in awe as
the insect
Liquified, disappeared, as petals
Curled inwards,
hiding the wound.