after “THE CARNAL RAIN,” via the New York Herald, March 21, 1876 

 

I dreamt I was dancing.

Cracked wells, coal smoke,

an old hymn faintly sung.

March 3rd, 1876,

Bath County, KY,

when the sky split,

and Kentucky rained red.

God, grant me serenity.

 

The buzzards unburdened themselves—

a choir of carrion purging in unison,

strings of gut-soft muscle

snowed over Olympia Springs

onto Mrs. Crouch’s front stoop

from someplace above her head.

 

Neighbours called it a miracle.

Two men, unafraid,

chewed and swore

it was deer, not beef.

 

The butcher too took a taste for certainty.

Proclaimed: palatable.

Torn from the throat of some animal.

 

Storm lines slick like stripper poles

stretched down before my eyes.

It was a sky from which desire 

and full diva-cups fell in chunks

sorted in size from finger to pea.

 

Lopsided spheres like unripe hearts bludgeoned

my back and shoulders.

I spun and became Sailor Moon:

plumes of burgundy ribboning;

a schoolgirl saint of gore,

a magical slut,

a Japanese princess.

Usagi, full signal.

 

I recognized then that I must have been dreaming.

Clinging to bed springs and bone,

keener to die than wake,

I burrowed longways,

seeking the one flat pose,

perhaps jambe en passé,

that would coax me back—

back into 19th century South,

into shiny Shibuya.

 

Then I felt it:

the north-western face

of my bare upper-arm

brushed something thin and leathery.

Spine lurched concave—

demon-possessed,

I screamed through the ceiling.

 

I braced for venom,

the certainty of serpent skin,

for God’s own punchline, fang-first.

 

Fingers closed around the culprit:

shed in bed, thin, white, slack.

An artery gone electric, 

laid limp,

sent by no one

to deliver me nothing divine,

just a fright and a drop

of borrowed current.

God, grant me full battery.