David Barnett
Falling out
We slept together for body-
scorch. In a Coygan
cave by bear and auroch.
On an Oglala plain
whose rituals furred the earth,
sucked up her dew.
Folk close to moose,
shrew, mink, porcupine.
To legends from the elders
of this race loping
past frost-rocks, aspen-
spasm, sparrow-chatter.
One by one such stocks
were rooted up. Division
of the spoils. Single
mother-love. Fathers’
fouls shrived by son-
god in his sky.
By their Saturday mass
at a stadium to match
the chants, the brays and neighs
from a cast of thousands.
Oilskinned against the rain
bogging hill-farms.
Acid-sharp it is.
Leaching into the blewits
round horsedung. Bracken
sapless like the hermits
who together spend
at their centres. Hack
to a hired island.
To drunkards in a shrunk
jungle. Or those cat-
families who tongue each others’
rumps before they bunch
into their decent sleep.
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