Rik Roots
Vampyr
Dogs have knocked the coffin down
to the ground in search of his bones.
While the lid holds, the last slants
of the ebbing sun catch his face
through dryrot panels, rashing his skin.
Nightfall. He unhooks the security latch
and levers the squealing lid open,
winces, then stretches. Checks the room
for stakes and stakeholders. Stands
and shakes the soil from his cloak.
Sunrash has singed his cheeks, hatcheting
across forgotten laughter ley-lines.
By touch, he applies a white foundation,
thick, panning his visage. A cherry lipgloss
soothes his parchment lips. Fangs are flossed.
Beyond ablutions, he breathes deep and takes
the shape of Wolf. Calling the hounds of hell
to heel, he leaves his tumbledown crypt and pads
through municipal burial fields. Aims for the edge
of town and the cultivated deserts beyond.
Food is scarce in these declining decades.
Beef and long-pork are both contaminated prey.
He settles for short-pork, ripping the pig
before it can scream, tossing torn haunches
to his black pack. He gulps ruby fluid. Unglamorous,
yet safe. Leaving the factory farm, a glance
of moonlight shivers his spine. He checks for cats
before shaking his form into gargoyle-faced Bat. Takes
wing across wheatfields, arcs across pearl clouds.
Watches farmhands wreck profits with circles in corn.
Page(s) 55-56
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