becoming your job

by C. Z. Heyward

it was time to leave

wings of the sparrow
loping through juniper berries
caress my lids into submission

she's nesting
as I've fed her soft grain
as an afterthought
one pint at a time

zoophilous screams of the quartet
wane on down the boulevard

I jump in a taxi
less I'm seduced back inside

He asks me
Where to my brother

In the moment
it was only cue I needed

I ask him
What brings you here

Bad dreams
his reply
About my children
orphans all them


I ask
civil war

Worse
Poachers

How worse

Their mothers can't fight back
Because elephants can't shoot rifles

Orphans have nightmares
Crying well into the night
Then through the sunrise
And sunset

He tells me

He bedded with them
No more than straw
And a blanket

but the screams of infants
fell like mourning stars
in between the cackles of hyenas
Feasting on the flesh of their mothers

So he left
No longer able to soothe
innocence mutilated

he's trying to remember to forget
but he's like them now
nothing is forgotten