open season on love

wrung high and decrepit as a sore man-child

might still dream upon a splintered soul

he prays still, body of blood when all is to spoil

for onlookers song of old, an off-part clothed, it

sirens for you the spoken-word, evergreen

bathing moon whom once you struck will forgive

all god finds itself back and bound, known only to

the sharp breathing; an inescapable shot-down humility

in to you, for you it goes out always a beating

“only,” says the heart, who is out now like a dead dove

further wounds bruises at the marked feet of love

for on in you must ask, what conditions?

air is forfeit and watching between fingertips

youth coils-in tense hold—tight shudder at that biting

glance into broke space; nose-to-floor on out

lick at a girl poisoned upon night’s gore, open season

tell the circling heart, a-choke now, “only noise”

a dark stretched limb and the neck-tight… it heaves