Caitie Moore

MADRUGADA, CHIAPAS
THE DOG

The pig could have gone without
a note to sing for death,
but death galloped toward
her throat and the cries issuing.
A low sufferance growl, a soprano shrill
though nostrils, the red chord
to devour darkness as long as she held it.
Leashed to a beam in the corner,
I watched their blades tisk away
her hair, the heavier their shadows
across her flesh, the less her voice was still.
Who thinks this is no melody,
the oboe pining until
at last it sang up the sun, the singe
of it mute beneath her bellow, and men
at this hour speak not in words, and trees
wouldn’t hear it, no trenches,
tamed, cannot be.

gggggggggggggggEverything around her
became loud with light, blood hummed,
her eyes brass discs to crash out time,
then black brass eyes the light
from a dawn only a star in each, far enough.
Breath forces awake the knife, awake
the birds there is more.

Odin Cabrera, where could I go?
Tied as I was to the echo, and the morning
that followed was not silent,
though everything stayed without a fight.
You came to see her at last
to paint her. What color will you put
the absence, and what the ten in the brush
who will be sated, and what
the rope ringing the beam.