My tender, bloody feet trip a wire in front of a
weathered hunting blind
triggering a group in camouflage
to surround me.
I am a box of viscera, all liver and kidney
and pink belly.
They keep their rifles trained eye level.
Behind, somewhere, the undead pluck the living
from their green stalks.
What can you do?
asks the man wearing a flak jacket,
guessing already I am as useful as a
split lip.
I am, I say, a poet.
Across from me, the group signals
their amusement, striking
looks back and forth so scalding it could light
a pyre.
The morning is thick with
flies; they beat themselves against
the men, against the blind.
In this age, the flies’
purpose is cemented, welcome even,
in fields ripe with bodies: their children shivering,
slivers of light making clean
bad flesh.
What can you do?
says the man wearing a flak jacket, steadying his rifle.
I say, Bad flesh
beats themselves against
the men. Their tender, pink-bellied children wait
shivering—fly-stalked.
My lips split to speak blood
blind, viscera, flak jacket. Call me,
Harvester. Though fields are ripe
with bodies, welcome me: I am as a sliver of light making
clean bad flesh.