Memories dart and dance around me.
Hyenas circle, lash in at me.
Each bite’s gash leaves me weaker.

From under the clouds’ swollen ceiling
through the ashen, motionless, indifferent air
voices flail away flesh, snap and snip,
and shred me in the silence.
I collapse, surrender to relentless fangs, spent,
drained of blood, awash in my tears and viscera.

After the hunt, and the feast,
my dried carcass, stripped in the sun,
whispers your name.

6/4/95