I've Half a Mind to Grab My Gun

I know that look in your eyes —
a wounded longing, limping
fox huddled down in its burrow
watching lean winter blanketing and biting,
the crows like dead leaves blackening
then deserting the barren trees,
envied beasts of smoke and stars.

I know that look in your eyes as a hound
knows the scent of blood.

I know that look in your eyes —
gripped as if blind and bound
in soil shrinking, loathingly sinking
your teeth into your trusting lover’s
throat, feeling her heartbeats like thorns
plunging deep into long-denied dreams,
hallucinating rain above, parched and near-
mad from thirst.

I know that look in your eyes as a vulture
knows the near-damned.

I know that look in your eyes –
even as mine weep, too far consumed
by the thinner air, at last bereft of this
professed cross, turncoat and timorous
blood, you crave to be effaced, to forget
the heaviness of knowing yourself
stitched to the leaden carrion
that was once christened
your heart.