And Now Famine, Friend

I
of course, no living is continuous,
we take what grows within
we cast them out as though to bloodlet

the life of its lesser sorrows;
it would be easier to brand
the blackened teeth,

the half-headed thing,
the hooved human
as something began in precurse,

landlines, formless substance, hungered
from the mutant offering
of fortune-telling

II
what has any of this to do with
presences, the space that cuts through
what language must be:

first, sun. and then a prelude’s antebellum
first, sun. and then the children who ripen
to vitamin loss. Somewhere far off

from Malawi. mouth: you mothering
anagram. swum from return. give age
to the ravenous dog searching

its own lure of an origin, pushing
the silence of a broken storm, back
to defend its dead.

III
of course, living is continuous
slow regret marbling a hope,
you remind me to arrive here, again,

and yes, i walk, unflagging the morning
understood from this drying version
of a faith. look, i’m just like you,

breath struck through a self, voice-spun,
like the scream of atoms before birthed sun:
and where began that fruit, now ruined, in the mouth

i’m terrified to kiss, and how
to be great in this gathering
misfortune of crowds