Comely & most fair are their shapes. How they glow
Blood flecked in dawnlight, svelte & pulchritudinous.

Resplendent the flaking, the hafting, the binding with sinew,
Worked for hours, worked for days,
                                                         tooled upon the mind’s

Impeccable lathe, tooled to in a second razor
Through hide & muscle, to heat-seek the heart,

The huge baggy lungs brimming over
With blood,
                   Sharp-flecked punctum, the thesis statement

Written through the eye, embedded in the frontal lobe.
So the prey stumbles down, the lungs

Still laboring, the haunches flensed. We stab
& climb the flanks, the real work beginning. I am become

Death, the shatterer of worlds, tooled & supernoval.
We clean our spearpoints—
                                            foaming red the serpentine arroyo. 

   Contributor’s notes

   Introduction
   Something of Us to Prove Our Afterlife: Notes on “Ochre”
   Table of Contents
   Acknowledgements

return to top