Expiry

Expiry

Forgive me.

Because, they move thickly

There are more than two- but two kinds-

The one that inquires, animal eyes trapping pine forest fires

The one that digs crescents into palms, screeching nails gently

Chalk-choked and purple scars along the fingers.

Red meat leaking

Perfumed chemicals and coriander

A spice hooked in the air and dragging

The things they carry under charred skin.

I am the bell in the jar and they

The dumb aquiline-eyed calves gentle

But stirring in the hive

feeding on the leftovers, lean.

Teacher, crawl across the stained tides

Desire painting pashmina scarves about their ankles, wound

Up the tendons of a music box haunting

The mausoleums they built of markers and plastic.

The flecked brown stories of their people

Things falling at the center, the hold

Cannot swell enough to keep their trails

We plan to forget them with our weapons.

Pages marking them branded with print

A pause in the metamorphosis, it splits

For them to see beyond the grease and linoleum

to beyond May two years from this, where

Nothing is bright.