The Body is an Animal

The body is an animal, anxious shadow,

Its skin a trap, flesh and furrows.

The bristles shiver.

It tastes the salt on your breath,

Follows ghost trails, a white footpath

Terror carved on your cheek,

Bathes in the pool your eyes made

of the cup of your ear.

Your tears were once beautiful, human,

suspended from soft angles of face,

Something holy, a communion.

But the line broke: now your sorrow’s static chatter,

Atoms howling at atoms, senseless.

Now, it waits, the sharpened blade,

Hatred, longing.