As the Sickle Moon Guts a Cloud
a sickness grows inside the moonlight,
turns under the mud in the corral
the horse churns to fever.
A boy stands at the fence
and whistles to the horse, clicks
his tongue, stamps his foot.
The horse will not come.
And when it does,
when the boy offers it hay,
it bites the center of his palm
which purples with blood.
In twenty years, the boy
will place a shotgun in his mouth
while his child is asleep.
Though they cannot be deciphered,
cannot become lighter,
all moments will shine
if you cut them open,
glisten like entrails in the sun.
The fever grows deeper
into itself, tender-rooted flowers
inside the belly of the horse,
inside the eye of the boy
who again tries to feed it the hay,
gently cups its mouth.
