FOUR POEMS
Small Hearts of Animals
for Rouge
they do not know
the joy they walk with their footprints a lesson
of faith O faithful companion of loneliness
the name we gave you was not a name but a cry
and you stayed
and now they come to hunt in the wild
not for meat
not with the ritual for killing this blood I return to the ground
is my blood this animal trapped and waiting for the knife is my body
here we take only the things we need here we bury the animal dead
from old age
they do nottheir rifles are powerful enough to stop a heart in secondsO lord they pose with the dead they smile into their camerathey stand and say look what my hands have rendered uselesswhen they leave a million flies sing the dead to decay
